CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – NOVEMBER 08: People take pictures and recordings as United States ICE agents conduct a raid in a predominantly Mexican American community in Chicago, United States on November 08, 2025. (Photo by Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Video of a daycare raid in Chicago went viral last week, showing armed federal agents dragging a teacher from Rayito de Sol Spanish Immersion Early Learning Center as children watched in terror. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a press release that agents detained the woman as she fled into her workplace, describing her as an asylum-seeker who had recently arranged for her two children to join her in the United States.
To the families at Rayito de Sol, a bilingual and bicultural daycare, the scene was something else entirely: a show of force that shattered their sense of safety.
Maria Guzman, whose two children attend the center, said she’s still shaken by what she saw and what her community has endured in recent months as Border Patrol and ICE agents have appeared across Chicagoland. “They clearly see that it’s a daycare,” she said. “And so if you are a person with a gun and you see that you’re going into a daycare, they made a choice to drag her out of there. That’s not about bringing someone to justice—that’s an abuse of power.”
Guzman, the daughter of immigrants, has joined a growing network of parents organizing “rapid response” patrols and safety checks at local schools. (In a statement, “ICE is NOT targeting schools or daycare centers,” DHS’s Office of Public Affairs insisted to Mother Jones in an emailed statement. “The media continues to peddle false narratives that are leading to an 8000% increase in death threats against federal law enforcement.”) She says she supports arresting “the worst of the worst,” as former President Donald Trump has called them, but believes what’s happening now is something very different.
“Armed agents in masks and unmarked cars are going after workers—landscapers, food vendors, daycare teachers,” Guzman said. “It’s getting to a point where it’s just too much. It’s too much to handle for our families. It’s too much to handle for our kids. Our kids are fearful.”
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Al Letson: Can, can you kind of tell me a little bit about Rayito [Rayito de Sol Spanish Immersion Early Learning Center]? Like what’s it like?
Maria Guzman: It’s a Spanish immersion daycare, meaning that they fully immerse the kids. As soon as they come in, they teach them Spanish, their Spanish music in the background. All of the staff are Spanish speaking.From the moment you drop your kids off and to the moment you pick them up, um, they are listening to the language and learning about the culture.
They have lessons on the flags and each of the countries of Latin America and their cultures and their traditions. It’s a beautiful opportunity for both [the] children of immigrants and of Latin American descent to be immersed in our beautiful community.
Al Letson: Can you tell me how things feel in the Chicago land area since the crackdown from ICE?
Maria Guzman: It’s been scary. It’s terrifying to think that at any moment, trucks will come in and just bombard our community. Armed agents who are taking our lawn workers, who are taking our daycare workers who are taking our street vendors.
It’s a nightmare. We never thought that this was going to be something that we’d have to face.
Al Letson: We’ve seen immigration do stuff, but we’ve never seen it like this. Like I don’t think I’ve ever seen the country, you know, masked agents coming into a community and, and just taking people off the streets.
Maria Guzman: They’re cowards. They know they’re not doing something right. They’re not wanting to show their face[s] because they know that at the end of the day, justice needs to be served and they cannot take people in this way.
This is a country built of immigrants. It’s too much to handle for our families. It’s too much to handle for our kids. Our kids are fearful and it’s just heartbreaking.
Al Letson: How has it affected your children?
Maria Guzman: You know, they’re still little. They live in a world where their worries are, “Do I have to eat my vegetables? Do I have to take a bath? Can I just play? Many of our communities feel that law enforcement is not on their side. To have conversations with our kids to say, those people who are supposed to be serving and protecting you are abusing their power. Covertly.
The lawlessness in other countries is the reason why people come to this country.
The lawlessness in other countries is the reason why people come to this country.
Al Letson: So let’s talk a little bit about what happened at the, at the daycare. Um, my understanding is that ice, uh, came through and arrested a teacher. Like, did they go into the building? Did the children see them do, like, how did that play out as far as, you know?
Maria Guzman: Yes, all of the above. They were behind the teacher as she sought to go into work. They dragged her out. It took three of them to drag her out. One of the officers then forced his way into the building [and] asked for documentation from someone who was not the teacher that they claimed to be looking for
It was hard to watch the terror in the faces of the teachers. The students saw it happen. There are students who are traumatized right now, who are fearful of going back to school. It’s just a horrendous situation where they’ve caused trauma in these children that is going to be so hard to move from.
Al Letson: The thing that struck me and and my producer Ashley is that what we are in right now is really a battle of, of two narratives. When ICE released their reports about who the teacher was, they really played her up like she was the worst person in the world, and we had to get her out of this country. Do you know this teacher at all?
Maria Guzman: Yes, I do. There is no truth to that. She is a family woman. We as a community trust her and we trust this organization to have vetted their teachers.
Al Letson: What are the actions that you are taking to take care of your community and really push back against this tide of immigration enforcement?
Maria Guzman: I think it’s twofold, right? I represent, proudly, the parents at this daycare. And, on the same hand, I also represent being an immigrant.
I’m the daughter of immigrants; proudly bilingual, proudly bicultural. This is the moment where we do not retreat. Everybody needs to say that this is enough because it is not the country that my children deserve. It is not the country that all of our children deserve. This divisiveness and this narrative that people are here to harm us or to take away our jobs – they’re trying to create an us versus them narrative. We are all one community and we should all be taking care of each other.
I’m using my voice. I’ve been fighting for immigrant rights in my free time for 20 years, um, for young, young people, for children of immigrants who came here when they were little and deserve an education, um, because their parents came here to give them a better life.
Like all of that is just playing into, um, what has happened this week because we cannot afford to stay quiet any longer.
Al Letson: Yeah. How has the daycare changed since this incident? And I know it’s only been a day or two, but, but what shifts have happened there?
Maria Guzman: Well, it’s been closed. Um, it’ll remain closed until next week. Um, uh, you know, a group of parents have come together to ensure that, you know, we feel like we’re safe and our children are safe, and, you know, our community of teachers are obviously safe because this is.
Unfortunately this is not an isolated incident. This is probably going to continue to happen in our communities. So we want to make sure that we all know our rights, that we have protocols in place.
We can go as back to normal as possible, but it’s, it’s going to be hard. It’s going to be something where we are going to build a coalition of parents. We’re gonna build a coalition of community, um, so that we have our support and we, and then, you know, the daycare knows that they have our support.
