ICE agents detain teacher at Chicago daycare Rayito del Sol in North Center

A video taken by a bystander captured two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detaining a woman inside a North Center daycare Wednesday morning. While the daycare and parents confirm to CBS News Chicago that the person detained is an educator there, Department of Homeland Security officials said it wasn’t clear to them if she worked there, and claimed ICE “did not target a daycare.”

The video shows two masked federal agents in plainclothes and wearing vests labeled “POLICE” inside the Rayito del Sol Spanish Immersion school and daycare’s Roscoe Village location. A woman can be heard screaming through the glass doors as the agents physically wrestle her out the door, at one point picking her up. They slam her, face-first, into the outer door as they push her outside.

Other video shows more agents outside the school, their vests labeled “POLICE ICE.”

Once outside, the educator is seen being pushed against a dark grey sedan parked outside the building as agents try to handcuff her with her hands behind her back. One agent briefly goes back inside as she’s seen pointing and speaking to the other agent.

The video was quickly shared among local parents’ groups on WhatsApp and posted to social media. Adam Gonzalez, another parent whose child attends the school, filmed the aftermath of the detention. He said he started filming when he saw ICE agents force a daycare teacher into the back of a car. 

“You know, a lot of things go through your head before you go to, ‘Oh my God, ICE is here to take someone away,'” he said. 

CBS News spoke with the director of the Rayito del Sol Roscoe Village location, who confirmed the woman is a pre-K teacher who had just been detained at the time of the phone call, but she didn’t have any further information. Parents said she was a teacher in an infant classroom.

“This is not the worst of the worst,” Gonzalez said. “These are teachers. These are people who care. These are people who are parts of our community, who we need, that are being ripped apart.”

“The only people being harmed here is the community, our neighborhood. That is who is being terrorized here right now,” said parent Maia Reed.    

A Biden-era rule that previously made schools and other locations “protected” or “sensitive” areas where immigration enforcement should generally not take place has been scrapped by the Trump administration, but acting director of ICE Todd Lyons has told CBS News that his officers would only go into these locations if a fugitive flees into one. 

DHS officials said two people – including the woman seen in the video, who they say is here illegally from Colombia – ran into the daycare after fleeing an ICE vehicle pursuit following an attempted traffic stop. DHS said one of the people who fled locked the door, while the other was detained. The official said it wasn’t clear if either person worked at the pre-K, but it appears that was the case. 

“ICE law enforcement did NOT target a daycare,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said a statement.

The daycare and school is closed today and will remain so until Monday, Nov. 10, according to a letter sent home to parents. Parents will be credited for the lost days to their fees for next month.

“As always, our primary focus is the well-being of the children whose care has been entrusted to us. We know this news is frightening and concerning for you and your children,” the school wrote in the letter. “We are providing additional support to our teachers and staff, and our families, during this time. We are also actively examining efforts to assist our detained teacher.” 

The teacher’s name has not been released by the school for privacy reasons, the letter said. However, DHS on Wednesday identified the woman as Diana Patricia Santillana Galeano from Colombia.

“I don’t know how you tell a child that a teacher that they love was taken away, but all I know is just if you have a kid, hug them because that’s all I could do when I saw my son,” Gonzalez said.     

Parent who witnessed detainment shares timeline of events

A parent who witnessed the entire incident told CBS News Chicago that the ICE agents grabbed a security door and held it open to make the arrest. Matt Champion said he had gotten to Rayito at 6:55 a.m., five minutes before doors officially opened, to drop his child off at school and parked in the lot. At 7:05 a.m., Champion said he saw a black car followed by an SUV pull into the parking lot from Addison, and added that “neither car was driving particularly fast.” 

Champion said the black car stopped and a teacher got out and ran into the school through two sets of doors, including an inner locking door. He said an ICE agent grabbed the security door as it was shutting and held it open as the other agents entered the school. He then saw two agents grab the woman’s arm and drag her outside, where she was handcuffed and put into the SUV. 

As this was happening, Champion said other parents who had arrived for school had started filming, and staff from Rayito were telling agents to leave the property as one agent remained inside. The last agent left the school, all the agents got into the SUV with the teacher and then they sped off, Champion said. 

Chicago officials condemn ICE actions, call for investigation

Ald. Matt Martin, who represents the 47th Ward where the school is located, said he has seen video from inside and outside the daycare center showing what he said was the teacher being violently detained while children were present.

“It is some of the most chilling video footage I have ever seen, certainly in my time in office,” Martin said.

Martin said the video shows that the teacher was followed into the building by what he said were ICE agents. He said the agents were not invited inside the building, and that they were armed with guns, walking around the facility with children and teachers present.

47th Ward Ald. Matt Martin speaks about teacher detained at North Center daycare

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Martin said he is demanding the teacher’s immediate release, and is working on all legal avenues to ensure that happens as soon as possible.

“I saw dozens of parents and educators weeping,” he said. “You have an educator who is going inside to teach our children, and you have federal agents with guns going inside, without permission, to violently take her away.

“Our communities don’t need this right now,” Martin added. “This is not the sort of help that we need from the federal government, and I just hope that we have leaders in Washington who are seeing what’s happening and are making it stop. I can’t put into words what it was like to walk in and see all those families and educators distraught.”

At a midday news conference, U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Chicago) said he is calling for immediate answers and accountability from DHS about this incident, saying the teacher was a “trusted member of the community with a work permit.”

Quigley said there are clear guidelines for immigration enforcement in sensitive places like schools and houses of worship, and that the morning’s arrest “shows this administration’s contempt for public safety and complete lack of humanity.”

Maria Guzman, a city of Chicago employee whose child attends Rayito del Sol, said the agents entered the school without consent and without a warrant.

“We are a country of immigrants, and it is absurd and horrific that they have now targeted our daycare centers,” she said. “They have crossed a line. Our schools, our libraries, our churches should be safe places for our children.”

U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Chicago) said she rushed over to the daycare after she got phone calls from staff and parents Wednesday morning. When she arrived, she found teachers hiding with children in classrooms to protect them, and she said she saw ICE agents checking multiple classrooms, looking for teachers while children were present.

“What happened today is despicable, it’s unconscionable, it’s unacceptable,” she said. 

Ramirez called on all her Democratic colleagues in Congress to sign onto the “Protecting Sensitive Locations” bill that has been introduced to protect spaces like schools and houses of worship from immigration enforcement. She said she has already filed for a congressional investigation into the incident and vowed to protect the rights of businesses and residents in her district.

“This is an agency that has gone rogue,” she said of the Department of Homeland Security. “An agency that believes that as long as they can cover their face, they can get away with anything.”

Ramirez also disputed DHS’s statement on what transpired leading up to the arrest, saying the woman is a teacher at Rayito del Sol and has a work permit. CBS News has confirmed she had a valid work permit at the time of her detention. 

“They are lying,” she said of DHS.

A DHS spokesperson said the educator had initially crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in 2023 and was granted the permit under the Biden administration based on a pending asylum application. A valid work permit in and of itself does not prevent someone from being detained by federal immigration officials if they do not have legal status in the U.S. 

Quigley also pointed out that DHS and Secretary Kristi Noem claimed they have not detained any U.S. citizens during Operation Midway Blitz, but their own data shows more than 100 U.S. citizens have been detained by federal agents since the beginning of September. 

Nicole Sganga and

Camilo Montoya-Galvez

contributed to this report.

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