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Just before noon on a sunny Friday earlier this month, federal immigration agents fired tear gas canisters at a busy chicago Just outside the café across the road, a primary school and a children’s playroom.
Parents, teachers and caregivers rushed to save children and have since grappled with how to keep them safe when masked men in unmarked SUVs show up unannounced in neighborhoods across the city.
Half a dozen children sat at the window of the Luna y Cielo Play Café, where children learn Spanish They were playing when a white SUV rolled down their street in historic Logan Square on October 3. hispanic A neighborhood that has been steadily gentrifying over the years.
Cafe owner Vanessa Aguirre-Avalos ran outside to see what was happening, as the children’s nannies took them to a back room. “These kids are traumatized,” Aguirre-Avalos said. “Even if ICE stopped doing what they’re doing now, people would be hurt.”
Weeks later, families — even those who are not in danger of being caught in immigration raids — say they are terrified, and many have asked not to be identified out of fear they will become targets.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that border Patrol Agents were “obstructed by protesters” during a targeted enforcement operation in which one person was arrested.
When the final bell rang at Funston Elementary School, children came out to see dozens of neighbors on the sidewalk. Neighbors searched the streets for unmarked SUVs and masked people. He also signed up to come to schools in this community every morning and afternoon, blowing a whistle to warn them if they needed to.
A furloughed federal employee, a father of two young children, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution at his job, said that, as a white man, he feels a responsibility to take action: “People They are targeted based on their appearance. They are being asked to present the documents. This is not right.”
Now, every utility pole is plastered with anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement stickers and instructions on what to do if detained. The supply of free whistles quickly disappears from library boxes across the street and from the counters of businesses with “ICE NOT WELCOME” signs in their windows.
On Friday morning, parents taking their children to Funston are greeted by first-grade teacher Maria Heavner and other members of the Chicago Teachers Union holding signs of support in English and Spanish.
“You don’t mess with kids. You don’t go near schools,” Heavener said. ,
This is a documentary photo story curated by AP Photo editors.