Immigration arrest of Chicago daycare worker at drop-off time for kids sparks outcry

CHICAGO (AP) — An employee of a Chicago daycare center and preschool was detained by immigration authorities at work as children were being dropped off Wednesday, according to witnesses, reflecting the Trump administration’s increasingly aggressive enforcement tactics.

The employee ran from a vehicle into the Rayito de Sol Spanish Immersion Early Learning Center after officers pulled in the parking lot right after her, Alderman Matt Martin said, citing witness accounts. The employee was detained between two glass doors at the entry while telling authorities she was a U.S. citizen, he said. Authorities went inside to question several people around 7 a.m., when the facility opened, according to witnesses.

It was unusual even under “Operation Midway Blitz,” which has resulted in more than 3,000 immigration arrests in the Chicago area since early September. Agents have rappelled from a Black Hawk helicopter in a middle-of-the night apartment building raid, appeared with overwhelming force in recreational areas and launched tear gas amid protests.

The several officers at Wednesday’s arrest wore clothing that read “POLICE ICE,” identifying them as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, according to Martin, who said he gathered information from witnesses. Video circulating online showed at least one officer wore a vest that said “ICE” as the woman was restrained and removed from the building.

ICE and its parent agency, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Rayito de Sol, which operates eight locations in Illinois and Minnesota, also did not respond to a request for comment. Following the arrest, its school in Chicago’s Roscoe Village closed for the day.

Parents gathered outside the preschool, sandwiched between dental offices in a strip mall, looking angered and dismayed.

Esmeralda Rosales rushed from work as her husband dropped off their 9-month-old child learned to show support for the staff. She said the woman arrested was her child’s teacher.

“These are the nicest, kindest people. They don’t deserve, these children don’t deserve to be living through this. This is just terrible, terrible, terrible,” she said.

Chris Widen, whose 4-month old is taught by the woman who was detained, said the operation came “at the school during the busiest time of drop-off where kids and families have to witness a teacher being forcibly removed and agents kitted up in practical gear.”

Adam Gonzalez was taking his child to Rayito on Wednesday morning to drop him off at preschool when he saw a commotion outside the school, with people yelling and federal immigration officers in body armor. Something didn’t feel right to him, he said, so he left his kid in the car and went to record the daycare teacher being detained by federal agents.

“I just thought I had to go record this,” Gonzalez said. “The world needs to see what’s happening, that this is not fake, that this is real.”

Gregory Bovino, a senior Border Patrol official who has become a face of the immigration crackdown in Los Angeles and Chicago, has staunchly defended the administration’s tactics in the face of threats and protests.

“I didn’t have any reason to think it would be this bad, but it’s far worse than I ever thought,” he said in an interview Monday. He called his agents “sanctuary busters,” a swipe at so-called sanctuary cities, like Chicago, that limit cooperation with immigration authorities.

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Associated Press writer Sarah Raza in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, contributed.