When two men carrying federal badges appeared at the entrance of a Chicago public school on Friday morning, school officials did what they had trained to do.
Believing that men were American immigration agents and customs enforcement, employees refused to allow them to school, John H. Hamline Elementary, who registered to children in kindergarten through eighth class in a mainly neighborhood neighborhood .
The school immediately informed officials in Chicago public schools, which quickly published a statement.
“Ice agents are not allowed at school and were not able to talk to students or staff,” the statement said.
But the school was wrong: the agents were actually from the secret service, not the ice. They were investigating a threat against someone who had been assigned their service to protect the Tiktok ban, a secret service spokesman said later.
The spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi, refused to name the threatened person. The agents had gone to a nearby house to try to talk to a minor, and then they had tried the school, unsuccessfully.
But the correction came too late to stop the panic and fear that had already been found around Chicago over rumored immigration raids. Throughout the week, many residents were on the edge above the Trump administration’s vows to displace unauthorized immigrants, worried that Ice agents could at any time reach workplaces, churches, and even schools.
“It seems that this was a very big bad communication,” Mr Guglielmi said in an interview.
Mr Guglielmi said the agents had been recognized as by the Secret Service and that their badges had been sealed with the words “Internal Security Department”.
“I just want to make it clear – the secret service will never investigate immigration issues,” he said. He noted that the organization had a consistent presence in Chicago, where former President Barack Obama still holds a home.
An ICE spokesman said there was no action to impose immigration at or near the school.
Some school systems in states such as New York, California, New Jersey and Illinois arrived at parents on Friday to try to assure them that federal agents will not be allowed in school sites without court order.
In Chicago, as well as in other jurisdictions that limit how much local officials can work with federal efforts to deport immigrants without papers, schools do not ask parents about their children’s immigration status.
In addition to John H. Hamline Elementary on the back of the yard neighborhood, many parents arrived to pull their children out of class early, as the wrong reports spread to texts and on Facebook that migratory agents were at school. Even Governor JB Pritzker entered the social media, referring to references to “raids” in a primary school.
“Within an hour of what was happening, the community was gathered,” said Berto Aguayo, a community organizer who rushed to school as soon as he heard that the Ice agents were there.
Mr Aguayo gave English leaflets and Spanish advising people on their rights, which supporters of immigration have done all week.
“We want to make sure parents feel safe to send their children to school,” he said.
Dana Goldstein They contributed reports.
