That seemingly spontaneous moment when 5-year-old Sophie Cruz busted through security in D.C. to meet the pope and tell him about the plight of her undocumented immigrant parents was actually nearly a year in the making.

The Associated Press reports that a coalition of immigrants rights groups in Los Angeles had been planning for Cruz to make her dash for the popemobile for a long time. Cruz delivered a letter saying that she was fearful that her undocumented parents could be deported.

“I believe I have the right to live with my parents,” Sophie told the AP after her moment with the pope. “I have the right to be happy. My dad works very hard in a factory galvanizing pieces of metal. All immigrants just like my dad feed this country. They deserve to live with dignity. They deserve to live with respect.”

Cruz was lifted over the barrier and ran toward the pope, but security stopped her. But then the popemobile stopped and security lifted her up so that she could receive a kiss and a blessing from the pope. If she hadn’t been successful in Washington, the group had plans to try in New York and then Philadelphia, Gutierrez said.

“We planned to do this from the moment we learned he was coming to the States,” Juan Jose Gutierrez of the Full Rights for Immigrants Coalition told The Associated Press. “We have been working for a while now trying to sensitize the American public that dealing with immigration is not just dealing with the people who came in without proper documents but that we also have … countless children whose parents are undocumented.”

Gutierrez says that Cruz seemed like an ideal spokeswoman for their cause, but he insisted no one coached her, “She just spoke from her heart. It all came from her.”