“… Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is denying their agents were involved, spurring confusion about what transpired.
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The Chicago Public Schools system confirmed in a statement and an interview Friday that immigration agents had showed up to Hamline but were not allowed inside. “The ICE agents said they were [Department of Homeland Security],” said Fanny Diego Alvarez, chief of family and community engagement for the district.
An ICE spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement that “this was not an U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement encounter” and that ICE agents did not visit the school. A Chicago police spokesperson said in a statement that his department received no calls for service to Hamline on Friday.
… Recess was about to start for a class of fifth-graders when an announcement came over the intercom, recalled a 10-year-old student. The girl was interviewed by The Post alongside her mother and grandmother, and spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect her and her family’s safety.
The principal’s voice sounded through the speakers, the girl recalled: “Everybody get in your classroom, get in your classroom. This is a code red, a lockdown. This is not a drill.”
Along with her classmates, the girl hurried to hide in a fourth-grade room on the first floor. Just the day before, she recalled, her teacher had warned the entire class that immigration agents might now be looking to enter schools and interrogate children. If anyone comes up to you, the girl remembered her teacher saying, do not talk to them. You don’t have to talk to them.
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“Everyone was so scared,” the 10-year-old said, “because we didn’t know if it was a shooter or the immigration police.”
Meanwhile, word was spreading through parent group chats, spurring panic and a frantic scramble to collect children, said a mother at the school, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect her family’s safety.
The mother, who is of Mexican heritage and whose family is here legally, said she found out about rumors of ICE agents around 11:30 a.m. from texts and from her grandmother who sometimes volunteers in the Chicago public school system. The grandmother raced to the school to collect her grandchildren, who all made it home safe, the mother said. …”