BY ALFONSO CHARDY

  Ramón Saúl Sánchez's résumé features noisy and disruptive street protests against U.S. policy on Cuban migrants and the government's handling of Elián González.

  Now the prominent Cuban exile leader's résumé includes another entry -- alleged illegal immigrant.

  Sánchez, 49, was arrested Tuesday by federal immigration officials who said he has no legal right to be in the United States.

  Even though he came to the United States from Cuba in 1967, Sánchez never applied to become a legal resident. He was supposed to do so a year after his arrival.

  Now Sánchez, who was released after his arrest, faces deportation proceedings.

  Sánchez, head of the Democracia Movement, says he never bothered to apply for residency because he considered himself a political refugee who would one day return to Cuba and fight for democracy.

  ''I felt my argument would have more validity if I were a refugee rather than a permanent resident or a citizen,'' Sánchez said in a telephone interview.

  Complicating matters: Because of hostile relations between the United States and Cuba, Sánchez will almost certainly not be deported. And under a 2001 Supreme Court ruling, the government cannot detain him indefinitely.

  Sánchez now wants to become a legal resident and his fate is in the hands of the federal immigration court.

  Sánchez's trouble began when he could not renew his Florida driver's license.

  Under guidelines tightened after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, non-U.S. citizens without proper immigration papers cannot obtain or renew a Florida driver's license.

  So Sánchez decided to apply for permanent residence or a work permit and was given an appointment for Tuesday. That's when he was arrested.

  ''You have been arrested because immigration officers believe that you are illegally in the United States,'' according to one of several documents federal officials gave Sánchez.

  Sánchez drew national attention in 1995 when he helped organize protests that triggered massive traffic jams on State Road 836. Demonstrators were angered by a new Clinton administration order to return Cubans intercepted at sea to their homeland. Those who reach U.S. soil are typically allowed to stay.

  Sánchez was one of dozens of protesters arrested three years ago for trying to block traffic at the Port of Miami-Dade, a day after U.S. officials ruled that Elián González must return to his father in Cuba.

  Sánchez also said he spent 4 ½ years in jail in the 1980s in New York for refusing to answer a grand jury's questions about violent anti-Castro groups.

  While jailed, he said, he lost an entry document federal officials gave him when he first arrived in South Florida with his 10-year-old brother.

  Sánchez said he plans to plead his case before an immigration judge on Sept. 23.

  ''While I am not going to encourage them to send me back, I will not resist if they want to send me back,'' he said. ``I leave that in their conscience.''