ICE Raided My Son’s Daycare To Abduct A Teacher. This Kind Of Trauma Lasts.

Children in Illinois have suffered months of systematic abuse by federal agents enacting Trump’s immigration raids.

By Tara Goodarzi, truthout

Children at my son’s Spanish immersion preschool in Chicago bore witness to a teacher being violently assaulted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who entered their school, armed with weapons, earlier this month.

One of the school’s infant teachers, Diana Santillana Galeano — known to the students as “Miss Diana” — was abducted by ICE on the morning of November 5 as she prepared to start her shift for the day. While my 3-year-old son did not see the teacher’s abduction, we arrived at the school — Rayito de Sol, located in the Roscoe Village neighborhood — shortly thereafter, and he was emotionally shaken by the traumatic aftermath unfolding at his beloved daycare.

Seeing his classmates, teachers, and other parents weeping and huddling together caused my son to break down. He eventually became withdrawn and quiet, appearing to become numb in the midst of the chaos around him. My husband was thankfully able to leave work to come to the school and care for him at home. He did his best to offer what comfort he could, telling our son that mommy had to stay behind at the school because I was a “helper” and that I needed to help Miss Diana come back. The next seven days were a whirlwind of community care and rapid organizing, as we tried to help our kids process this trauma.