Just before noon on a sunny Friday earlier this month, federal immigration agents threw tear gas canisters onto a busy Chicago street, just outside of an elementary school and a children’s play cafe.
Parents, teachers and caretakers rushed to shield children from the chaos, and have been grappling ever since with how to explain to them what they’d seen: how much to tell them so they know enough to stay safe, but not too much to rob them of their innocence.
Weeks later, families — even those not likely in danger of being rounded up in immigration raids — say they remain terrified it will happen again, demonstrating how fear seeps into every facet of American life when the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown takes over a city.
Witnesses say there was no warning
Fifth grade teacher Liza Oliva-Perez was walking to the grocery store across the street for lunch.
She noticed a helicopter circling, then the SUV and its tail of honking cars.
That morning, another teacher gave her a whistle with instructions to blow it if immigration agents were nearby.
As Oliva-Perez fumbled getting the whistle to her lips, the SUV’s window rolled down and the masked man threw the first gas canister.
“I couldn’t fathom that was happening,” said Oliva-Perez. Then he threw another, this time in her direction.
She said she was only feet away on the sidewalk and didn’t hear the agents say anything. Then she ran toward the school, yelling at staff to get the children inside.
