Chicago Parents Denounce ICE For Violently Detaining Beloved Daycare Teacher in Front of Toddlers
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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman in New York. Juan González is in Chicago, where protests are continuing over the Trump administration’s massive immigration raids. Over the weekend, federal immigration agents reportedly pepper sprayed a father and his 1-year-old daughter at close range in the parking lot of a grocery store in the Chicago suburb of Cicero. On Friday, police arrested 14 mothers who were protesting outside the Broadview Immigration Jail.
PROTESTOR: There aren’t enough people speaking up. There are people protesting here at this Broadview ICE facility every Friday, but not enough. We are in our communities being terrorized by ICE and Border Patrol. They are tear gassing neighborhoods for fun. We saw that in court this week, video of them saying, “Have fun,” as they threw tear gas canisters at a residential neighborhood.
They ran in this week to a daycare center and pulled the teacher out in front of toddlers, who were screaming and crying. In my school, at the elementary school, we have to walk children to and from school because their immigrant parents are afraid to leave the house. Our entire community in Chicago and across the suburbs are being terrorized by ICE and Border Patrol. We are moms, we are mad, we are coming together to say that families should not be torn apart, immigrants should not be targeted.
AMY GOODMAN: The Broadview protests came days after a shocking video went viral showing armed ICE agents in black vests dragging a teacher out of a Spanish immersion daycare and preschool in front of the children and parents. Diana Santillana Galeano at the Rayito del Sol Spanish immersion early learning center, community members, including Democratic Congressmember Delia Ramirez, have denounced her arrest.
CONGRESSMEMBER RAMIREZ: They didn’t just walk in chasing one person. They went into multiple rooms asking and looking for teachers, while children were present. This is an agency that has gone rogue, and it’s an agency that believes in as long as they can cover their face, they can get away with anything.
It is why this immediate press conference was so important and why all of us are here with the parents, with teachers, with someone who I just talked to an hour ago, and she said, “Delia, I don’t think I can go back to work tomorrow. I don’t know that I’m safe.”
AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Chicago, where we’re joined by Tara Goodarzi, a parent of a 3-year-old who attends Rayito del Sol where Diana Santillana Galeano was detained by ICE on November 5 in front of parents and the young kids. Tara, thanks so much for being with us. You came right after this happened. Can you describe what everyone described? Of course, we see this woman being taken out, the teacher at the daycare center. Explain what the kids and the parents saw.
TARA GOODARZI: Hi, good morning, Amy. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, I was on my way to drop off my son to school when I started getting a bunch of calls and texts about the situation at the school. My son was super excited to start his normal day at his favorite place and see all his friends. And when we arrived, it was just a shocking scene. There were crowds of parents and teachers huddled together and crying, kids were crying, some were in corners, like, being shielded by their teachers, almost as if they were hiding. It was a devastating scene. And my son quickly became emotionally affected by it as well.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Tara, the Department of Homeland Security spokesperson claimed on X that individuals were attempting to barricade themselves inside the daycare center. What do you know actually happened when these agents arrived?
TARA GOODARZI: My understanding is that the teacher was just trying to get to work to start her normal day. She is a beloved member of our community. We want her to be there teaching our children. And she was followed in to the school. Our school has security measures in place, such as signs outside that say that it’s a private establishment for authorized personnel only, we have locked inner doors that prevent people from just walking in, and so Diana was allowed in to start her normal day. She is absolutely a teacher there. My understanding is she was just trying to get to work that day.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And how have you and the other parents began to process what happened to the children of the daycare center?
TARA GOODARZI: Yeah, we have really banded together as a community as part of the larger efforts of resistance that have been happening in Chicago for months now. So, mirroring those efforts, we have started our own parent patrols outside of the school with whistles. Our whistles are kind of the only thing we have right now in Chicago to protect ourselves and our communities from these agents.
We’ve started meal trains, we’ve started ride-share programs for the teachers who are maybe too scared to drive themselves to work every day or even to go to their assigned court dates for some immigration hearings.
So, we have safe passage escort programs for them, we’ve also started legal defense funds, and we’re working on, like, master lists of readily available immigration counsel that can be of help to any educators that are in need. So, it’s really brought an awareness and a heightened sense of community to our neighborhood and our city in an effort to heal from the trauma that we faced last week and that we have been facing for months now, since the onset of Operation Midway Blitz.
AMY GOODMAN: GoFundMe has just exploded, supporting the teacher. Also, can you talk about the mutual aid networks that are providing ride-shares and groceries for neighbors who are too afraid to leave their homes now?
TARA GOODARZI: Yeah, so everybody has a different risk tolerance in Chicago, so there’s a different way to contribute and chip in for everybody. If you want to be a little bit more low-profile, there are mutual aid networks everywhere. In every neighborhood, a lot of organizations are starting their own, a lot of schools are starting their own.
There are food pantries that are constantly up and running, looking for volunteers to take shifts. People pack groceries, people sign up for delivery shifts all over the city. There’s just been an explosion, like you said, of opportunities to contribute to our immigrant communities. They are deeply, deeply important to us in Chicago, and right now, we just want to do everything we can to support them.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And do you think, Tara, that the institutions, the local institutions in this city, the police, the mayor, and the other elected officials are doing enough to assure the safety and tranquility of not only your daycare center, but of immigrants and folks throughout the city right now?
TARA GOODARZI: Yeah, I’m fully supportive of Mayor Johnson’s executive order that he signed a little while ago, which prohibited ICE from utilizing public spaces for any operations. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like that’s being adhered to. So, I think we really do need to reevaluate what else can be done to protect us from these federal agents.
Unfortunately, I have been at Broadview myself. I have seen Illinois State Police acting in a violent way towards peaceful protestors. And over the weekend, I saw Chicago Police officers doing similar activities. So, we are starting to get increasingly concerned about some of the state police activity that’s been happening, and I do think this is an issue that needs to be addressed with both the governor and the mayor.
AMY GOODMAN: And if you could finally, Tara, talk about how your little boy, 3-year-old, who came right after, but all the other kids terrorized and the parents, how are these kids dealing with what they saw, their teacher being dragged out? And she, herself, this Spanish immersion teacher of preschoolers, has two kids herself.
TARA GOODARZI: Yeah, she is a mother, and she’s actually an infant teacher. So, we entrust Diana with our youngest kids at this school, babies. That’s how much we love and support her. People send their new babies, as young as four months, I believe, to be in her care every day. The kids have been so confused. The kids have been saying things like, “Are they going to take me next? If I speak Spanish outside, am I going to get taken from my mom? Where is my teacher? I miss Ms. Diana. I’m afraid.”
These are things that our children have said to us. My son was completely – like, he shut down emotionally after this happened. Kids process things differently, and he was just, like, so shocked by the state that his school and his safe place had transformed into. And we really need to start working on how to talk to our kids about these issues.
I’m personally working on some know-your-rights materials that can be, like, transferred to little kids, so we can start having these conversations with them as well as showing them, like, age-appropriate books about how to interact with our neighbors and our community and learn about what it means to be undocumented in Chicago, just so they can all start learning, unfortunately, from an early age what this has done to our city.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you for being with us. Tara Goodarzi, parent of a 3-year-old who attends Rayito del Sol daycare center, where one of the young teachers, Diana Santillana, was violently detained by ICE, dragged out of the school on November 5 in front of parents and young children.
Coming up, Free Joan Little, a new documentary, looks back at the 1975 murder trial of the first woman in U.S. history to be acquitted of using deadly force to resist sexual assault. Stay with us, back in 20 seconds.
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AMY GOODMAN: “Women Gather,” by Sweet Honey and the Rock, performing with Bernice Johnson Reagon in our Democracy Now! firehouse studio back in 2003. Bernice Johnson Reagon is featured in our next segment.
