Little Village community members want city officials to speed up the placement of signs enforcing “ICE-free zones” after federal agents were spotted near two Chicago Public Schools on the Lower West Side on Tuesday.
In one incident captured on video, federal agents drove around the parking lot of Lazaro Cardenas Elementary School, 2345 S. Millard Ave., according to Little Village Community Council President Baltazar Enriquez, who spoke at a news conference Wednesday.
“They are using a CPS parking lot!” a woman says in the video, taken around 5 p.m.
CPS employees and community members then asked the agents to leave, Enriquez said. After that, the agents went to a nearby alley and detained four people, he said.
Federal agents were also spotted in alley adjacent to the field at Farragut Career Academy, 2345 S. Christiana Ave., where students were practicing, according to a statement from CPS.
These incidents, among others in recent days, have made students afraid to go to school, Enriquez said.
The sightings have also reignited a previous call for the city to speed up installing more than 500 signs at school parking lots to prohibit immigration agents. Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office has said the signs are necessary to enforce an Oct. 6 executive order that prohibits immigration agents from using city property.
“This is adding another layer of trauma to our children, and the mayor is not doing anything to protect our children,” Enriquez said. “We want [the city] to come and put a sign here in every school in Little Village that ICE agents cannot use CPS property.”
Members of the council said some students from elementary school to high school are afraid to go to school.
Virginia Martinez said her high school senior stayed home from school Wednesday after spotting ICE agents outside Benito Juarez Community Academy in Pilsen.
“She called me yesterday on the phone, ‘Mom, ICE is here.’” she recalled and responded to her daughter saying, “I’ll go find you. Just stay somewhere safe.”
Enriquez said the signage may not stop federal operations from occurring on school property, but the signs can be used to hold federal officers accountable in court.
Johnson’s office has said it would take time to install signs at the 4,000 lots in the city, at the cost of $100 per sign. Enriquez said if money is an issue, “We’ll buy the signs, we’ll put up the signs.”