Standing on a street corner outside Hamline Elementary Monday afternoon, Gloria Marquez noticed the sidewalk had an unusually small number of parents for dismissal.
Her 13-year-old and 9-year-old attend and are U.S. citizens, and Marquez has a green card.
“Still, my youngest cried this morning on the way to school,” she said.
Fear regarding looming deportations following President Donald Trump’s return to office came to a head Friday, when people reported a sighting of what they thought were immigration agents attempting to enter Hamline Elementary on Chicago’s Southwest Side. They were later identified as Secret Service agents.
The identification presented by agents read “Department of Homeland Security,” and amid heightened anxiety within the community regarding pending mass deportations, the school leaders contacted the district’s central office, per district guidance, and reported U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at the school, according to a Chicago Public Schools spokesperson.
The agents who visited the school reported that they left their business card, which identified the Secret Service’s Chicago Field office on it, the agency said,but a CPS spokesperson said Hamline’s staffers reported not seeing a business card.
In a hastily called press conference in the early afternoon, CPS’ chief education officer confirmed that the Back of the Yards school had prevented ICE officers from entering. Later, the school district said its “original communication was a result of a misunderstanding.”
Instead of ICE, the agents who had come to the school building were from the Secret Service, confirmed Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. Both agencies are under the purview of Homeland Security.
Many questions remain about what happened at Hamline Elementary on Friday.
Guglielmi told the Tribune its agents were investigating a threat against a “protectee” in connection with TikTok. While the Secret Service would not divulge the details of the investigation, it is not the agency’s policy to interview juveniles without a guardian present, Guglielmi said.
“We want to make clear that we investigate threats against government officials and high-level financial crimes,” Guglielmi said.
Marquez said she didn’t blame CPS for inaccurately reporting that ICE agents had come to Hamline on Friday because she knew the school district was doing its best to “respond in the moment.” But she didn’t like the backlash CPS received for initially reporting the wrong information, she said. The details are still unclear to her.
“You know what, it was a mistake,” she said. “Even so, it doesn’t make any sense. How many massive shootings have happened at schools and no federal agents have gone? So what was going on?” Marquez asked.
The miscommunication was amplified by Democratic leaders from the Chicago area who were quick to condemn ICE late last week when news coverage trickled out about the federal agents’ presence at Hamline.
Gov. JB Pritzker took to “X,” the platform formerly known as Twitter, on Friday as news reports on the incident were developing, and without overtly blaming ICE, he accused Republicans of “sowing fear and chaos,” saying “the first reports of raids in Chicago are at an elementary school.”
“Targeting children and separating families is cruel and un-American,” Pritzker posted, while linking to one of the news stories about purported ICE activity.
U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, who is from the heavily Latino Little Village community in Chicago, put out a statement on “X” saying the schools must be a safe haven for children and families to “come and go without fear of intimidation from ICE.” He doubled down the next day on his disdain for the law enforcement activity at the school, even after learning ICE was not there.
“Last night, the Secret Service confirmed their agents, not ICE, visited Hamline School in Chicago. Regardless of the federal or government entity, harassing children and communities is unacceptable,” Garcia posted. “Let me be clear: schools must remain safe havens for kids, families, and staff.”
On Monday, a spokesperson for Garcia said Trump’s executive orders “and threats” have caused a “climate of anxiousness” for people in Chicago and noted it’s unusual for the Secret Service to show up at a school.
“What is important is that the training that the school personnel has had kicked in, and they reacted in the way they are supposed to react,” the spokesperson said.
Inside Hamline
Erendira Rendon, vice president of immigrant justice for The Resurrection Project, said her team was having a meeting with immigrant parents inside Hamline on Friday morning when agents they believed were ICE came to the school’s door.
The meeting was held to provide educational training about how to respond to ICE encounters — to protect children and others in the school and in the community.
Neither Rendon nor the parents saw the agents, but they were immediately notified.
“Despite the fear, the response from the school’s administration showed that we are ready, and they were able to act accordingly to keep the children and their staff safe,” Rendon said.
Resurrection Project works with 14 other schools in Back of The Yards and Pilsen that serve a predominantly Latino population under the organization’s parent mentor program, which recruits and trains parents to become classroom assistants.
Rendon’s team, along with a network of other organizations in the Chicago area, are working to confirm immigration enforcement activity to avoid sharing false information or creating more fear.
“What we saw (Friday) was not an increase of enforcement, it was the normal ICE activity that always happened,” Rendon said. “So that’s good news, but it is important to continue educating yourselves.”
It was around 11:30 am Friday morning when Gisela’s son — whose name is being withheld for privacy — was told by his eighth-grade teacher that his school was on lockdown.
“He was really scared,” said Gisela, whose last name is not being used because of her fear of retaliation. “My son told me he thought that it was a shooter that had come inside the school.”
His other classmates were anxious.
“I thought someone was trying to come in to kill us,” Gisela’s son told her.
To which she responded, “Don’t ever say that.”
Neither Gisela, her son, nor his teacher knew what was going on. Gisela has served as a parent mentor, assisting teachers in the school for nearly four years, she said. Before Friday, it was a safe space for her and her two children. Her 10-year-old daughter also attends Hamline.
So when Gisela got the email from the school that it was ICE agents who had caused the lockdown, she started shaking, she said.
The family, from Guanajuato, Mexico, has lived in the area for nearly 20 years and there has been no avenue to apply to fix their immigration status. At least not until their son is of age, she said.
When her son found out that it could have been ICE who caused the lockdown at his school, he immediately asked Gisela, “What will I do if one day you’re not here when I get home from school?”
Gisela comforted him by telling him that he was strong and smart and he would know how to take care of himself and his little sister.
‘Our teachers were talking about it’
“Mental health resources are available at every CPS school to help students who feel concerned or anxious about changes in directives from the new federal administration,” a CPS spokesperson said in a statement.
CPS’ Crisis Management Unit was present at Hamline on Friday and Monday and will remain in close communication with the school throughout the week, according to district officials. The team will continue to be available for additional on-site support for as long as it is needed, officials said.
The district said in its statement Monday that it remains “committed to creating an environment where all students feel welcome, safe, and can focus on their education.”
Monday afternoon, several parents told the Tribune their children had been affected.
Mary, a mother of three from Ecuador, watched her 9-year-old Aaron throw an eraser up over the sidewalk outside Hamline. He made his own game of jacks with plastic scraps he collected on the ground.
Working as the assistant manager of a Burger King and her husband at an auto factory, Mary said she never expected to be targeted like this when she made the decision to come to the U.S. She asked that her last name be withheld out of fear of ICE.
Having lived in Chicago for one and a half years, Mary said that at this point her son can speak better English than her. He helped translate the CPS news for her Friday so she could understand what exactly had happened, she said.
“They’re going to deport everyone who has our skin color,” Aaron said to her Friday.
“It has nothing to do with your skin color,” she told him to quiet his nerves.
She didn’t know where Aaron heard that he might be targeted for the color of his skin, but it didn’t surprise her.
“Our teachers were talking about it,” Aaron said to his mom, pausing momentarily from his game of imaginary jacks.
“That brown and white children were separated at school before, years ago.”
