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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.