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In the wake of aggressive immigration enforcement in Chicago, some elected officials and union leaders are calling on the community to help protect immigrant students and their families.
Chicago Public Schools is also reminding families that it doesn’t collect immigration information and that parents should provide emergency contact information to schools.
The messages from CPS, the Chicago Teachers Union, and state and local elected representatives came after a mother and her children, ages 8 and 3, were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at Millennium Park over the weekend. Their comments also come after federal agents rappelled onto an apartment building in South Shore on Tuesday, where ICE arrested more than 30 people. Many migrant families have settled in the South Side neighborhood in recent years.
Chicago Public Schools did not say whether South Shore-area schools had planned or offered additional support for their students this week after the raid.
During a press conference Thursday outside of Roosevelt High School in the immigrant-rich neighborhood of Albany Park, teachers and elected officials reported ICE activity and arrests in the neighborhood Wednesday, including near schools. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not confirm whether ICE detained anyone near the school or elsewhere in the neighborhood.
“I am standing here with educators, teachers, school clerks, teachers assistants, social workers and nurses to say that again … They are not welcome to pick up parents and detain them after they drop their children off at our schools. They are not welcome in our neighborhoods to terrorize, to ask for papers,” Stacy Davis Gates, president of the CTU, told reporters.
In a Wednesday letter to CPS families, interim CPS CEO Macquline King said teachers do not ask students or families for immigration status, and CPS does not share student records with ICE or other federal representatives without a court order or consent from the student’s guardian. Her letter also reminded families that schools do not allow federal agents inside without a criminal judicial warrant signed by a federal judge.
Evelyn Gonzalez, a teacher and CTU delegate at Roosevelt, said teachers volunteered to stay late at the building Wednesday for kids who felt safer staying back.
“There were businesses offering refuge in case we needed it, and there were neighbors from our community stepping up to make sure our students were safe walking home,” Gonzalez said. “I hope that we can stand together and that we can care for each other.”
Ald. Rossana Rodriguez, whose ward includes Albany Park, said she closed her office early Wednesday so that she and staff could help monitor school dismissal. Her office and community organizers were able to gather 50 people in about two hours who would help “notify the community” in case ICE agents showed up, she said.
State Sen. Graciela Guzman told reporters that the children and mother arrested at Millennium Park have been released, and the 8-year-old girl went to school Thursday, crediting advocacy from the community. A federal judge ordered that both are protected from deportation for now, the Chicago Tribune reported.
“She went to school today and she played in her playground today,” Guzman said.
Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.
