ICE Arrests IL Daycare Teacher, Dragging Her Screaming From Place Of Work: Video

CHICAGO — Community members are calling for the release of a Chicago daycare teacher who was captured on video Wednesday morning being dragged from her place of work by federal agents.

U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley said at a press conference Wednesday afternoon, livestreamed by WGN on Facebook, that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents followed the woman, who has a work permit, into the daycare without a warrant and took her into custody in front of her students.

She is now being held at the agency’s facility in Broadview, according to U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez.

“They have crossed a line,” Maria Guzman, a parent at Rayito de Sol, the Spanish-immersion daycare in the 2500 block of West Addison Street where the incident took place, said at the press conference. “Our schools, our libraries, our churches should be safe places for our children.”

The officers had tried to conduct a traffic stop on the woman, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement posted on X, describing the teacher as a “female illegal alien from Colombia.”

Officers attempted to pull over her vehicle with sirens and lights, but the male driver refused, and authorities followed it until the two ran into the daycare and tried to barricade themselves inside, according to McLaughlin, who said the woman was arrested in a vestibule, not in the school, and lied about her identity.

Ramirez said at the press conference that she had seen footage from inside the daycare.

“They didn’t just walk in chasing one person; they went into multiple rooms, asking and looking for teachers while children were present,” Ramirez said. “This is an agency that has gone rogue. And it is an agency that believes that as long as they can cover their face, they can get away with anything.”

McLaughlin, in her statement, said that ICE did not target the daycare.