A worker at a Chicago day care center and preschool was detained by immigration agents on the job as children were being dropped off Wednesday, witnesses said, reflecting increasingly aggressive enforcement tactics by the Trump administration.
The employee ran from the car into the Rayito de Sol Spanish Immersion Early Learning Center after officers immediately pulled into the parking lot, Alderman Matt Martin said, citing eyewitness accounts. The employee was stopped at the entrance and told officers she had documents. According to witnesses, officers went inside to question several people around 7 a.m. in the morning when the institution was opened.
That was unusual even during Operation Midway Blitz, which has resulted in more than 3,000 immigration arrests in the Chicago area since early September. Agents struck from a Black Hawk helicopter during a midnight raid on an apartment building, showed up in large force at recreational areas and fired tear gas during protests.
According to Martin, several officers on Wednesday wore clothing that said “POLICE ICE,” which means they are U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. A video posted online showed at least one officer in a vest emblazoned with the words “ICE” as the woman was restrained and taken away.
The US Department of Homeland Security reported that a woman from Colombia entered the US illegally in June 2023 and was authorized to work under the Biden administration. Her children, aged 16 and 17, crossed the border illegally last month near El Paso, Texas, and were brought to a government shelter in Chicago for unaccompanied migrant children.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for Homeland Security, denied that the daycare center was a target. She said the driver of the woman’s registered vehicle driving her to the daycare center ignored law enforcement sirens and emergency lights when officers tried to pull them over.
“They got into the daycare and tried to barricade themselves in the daycare — recklessly endangering the children inside,” McLaughlin said.
Rayito de Sol, which operates eight locations in Illinois and Minnesota, did not respond to a request for comment. Her school on Chicago’s North Side was placed on lockdown for the day following the incident.
Parents gathered outside the preschool looked angry and confused.
Esmeralda Rosales, whose husband left behind a 9-month-old child, rushed home from work to show support to the staff. She said that the arrested woman was her child’s teacher.
“These are the nicest, nicest people. They don’t deserve, these kids don’t deserve to go through this,” she said.
Chris Widen, whose 4-month-old baby is also being taught by the woman in custody, said the operation took place “at the school during the peak of the walkout, when children and families have to see a teacher forcibly removed and agents in tactical gear.”
Adam Gonzalez dropped his child off when he saw people outside the school yelling and federal immigration officials in body armor. According to him, something didn’t seem right to him, so he started recording the employee’s detention.
“The world needs to see what’s going on, that it’s not fake, that it’s real,” Gonzalez said.
“It seems like in Chicago, you’re only one or two degrees of separation from someone who’s had an ICE experience right now,” said Rayit’s father, Jason Wirth, who was about to drop his son off.
Immigration officials have sparked outrage in recent months over activity near schools, particularly during peak child drop-off or pick-up times.
In July, agents confronted the man in the parking lot of his child’s preschool in suburban Portland, Oregon, where many preschoolers were watching. In Los Angeles, agents handcuffed a disabled teenager outside a high school campus, then released him when they realized they had the wrong person. Last month in Chicago, agents fired tear gas into an elementary school playground where children were playing.
Gregory Bovino, a senior Border Patrol agent turned immigration crackdown in Los Angeles and Chicago, staunchly defended the administration’s tactics in the face of threats and protests.
“I had no reason to think it would be this bad, but it’s a lot worse than I ever thought,” he said in an interview Monday. He called his agents “sanctuary breakers,” sweeping through so-called sanctuary cities like Chicago that limit cooperation with immigration authorities.
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This story has been corrected to show that Matt Martin said the woman told officers she had “papers,” not that she was a U.S. citizen, and corrected Chris Widen’s quote to say the agents were wearing “tactical gear” rather than “practical gear.”
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Raza reported from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Associated Press writer Moriah Balingit in Washington, DC contributed.