Federal agents detain teacher at Chicago preschool and daycare in North Center

A video taken by a bystander, and seen by CBS News Chicago, captured two federal agents detaining a woman inside a North Center daycare Wednesday morning.

The video shows two masked federal agents in plainclothes and wearing vests labeled “POLICE” inside the Rayita del Sol Spanish Immersion school and daycare’s Roscoe Village location. A woman can be heard screaming through the glass doors as the agents physically wrestle her out the door, at one point picking her up. They slam her, face-first, into the outer door as they push her outside.

Once outside, she’s pushed against a dark grey sedan parked outside the building as agents try to handcuff her with her hands behind her back. One agent briefly goes back inside as she’s seen pointing and speaking to the other agent.

The video was quickly shared among local parents’ groups on WhatsApp and posted to social media.

CBS News spoke with the director of the Rayita del Sol Roscoe Village location, who confirmed the woman is a pre-K teacher who had just been detained at the time of the phone call, but she didn’t have any further information.

Ald. Matt Martin, who represents the 47th Ward where the school is located, said he has seen video from inside and outside the daycare center showing what he said was the teacher being violently detained while children were present.

“It is some of the most chilling video footage I have ever seen, certainly in my time in office,” Martin said.

Martin said the video shows that the teacher was followed into the building by what he said were ICE agents. He said the agents were not invited inside the building, and that they were armed with guns, walking around the facility with children and teachers present.

Martin said he is demanding the teacher’s immediate release, and is working on all legal avenues to ensure that happens as soon as possible.

“I saw dozens of parents and educators weeping,” he said. “You have an educator who is going inside to teach our children, and you have federal agents with guns going inside, without permission, to violently take her away.”

“Our communities don’t need this right now,” Martin added. “This is not the sort of help that we need from the federal government, and I just hope that we have leaders in Washington who are seeing what’s happening and are making it stop. I can’t put into words what it was like to walk in and see all those families and educators distraught.”

CBS News Chicago has reached out to the school and the Department of Homeland Security for more information and is waiting to hear back.