Chicago's ICE Raid at Daycare: Community Impact and Ongoing Fear

Video of a daycare raid in Chicago went viral last week, showing armed federal agents dragging a teacher from Rayito de Sol Spanish Immersion Early Learning Center as children watched in terror. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a press release that agents detained the woman as she fled into her workplace, describing her as an asylum-seeker who had recently arranged for her two children to join her in the United States. To the families at Rayito de Sol, a bilingual and bicultural daycare, the scene was something else entirely: a show of force that shattered their sense of safety. Maria Guzman, whose two children attend the center, said she’s still shaken by what she saw and what her community has endured in recent months as Border Patrol and ICE agents have appeared across Chicagoland. “They clearly see that it’s a daycare,” she said. “And so if you are a person with a gun and you see that you’re going into a daycare, they made a choice to drag her out of there. That’s not about bringing someone to justice—that’s an abuse of power.” Guzman, the daughter of immigrants, has joined a growing network of parents organizing “rapid response” patrols and safety checks at local schools. (In a statement, “ICE is NOT targeting schools or daycare centers,” DHS’s Office of Public Affairs insisted to Mother Jones in an emailed statement. “The media continues to peddle false narratives that are leading to an 8000% increase in death threats against federal law enforcement.”) She says she supports arresting “the worst of the worst,” as former President Donald Trump has called them, but believes what’s happening now is something very different. “Armed agents in masks and unmarked cars are going after workers—landscapers, food vendors, daycare teachers,” Guzman said. “It’s getting to a point where it’s just too much. It’s too much to handle for our families. It’s too much to handle for our kids. Our kids are fearful.”