Illegal immigrant saved 6-year-old

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The man who chased down a suspected child abductor and saved a 6-year-old girl from what could have been a horrible fate this week in Albuquerque, N.M., will be honored Friday as a hero by the mayor.

But 24-year-old Antonio Diaz Chacon is also gaining a new kind of celebrity: as a poster child of sorts for immigration rights.

Diaz Chacon is married to an American and has been in the country for four years. But Chacon says he abandoned attempts to get legal documents for living here because the process was difficult and expensive.

Christina Parker of Border Network for Human Rights in El Paso, Texas, says the case underscores that most illegal immigrants living in the U.S. are not criminals but simply people trying to support their families.