When Chris arrived at his childrens’ day-care center on November 5, he immediately sensed that something was wrong. There were more cars in the parking lot than usual, and when he walked into the Spanish immersion school, a visibly shocked parent told him that “ICE agents just came in and took Miss Diana.” Around 7 a.m. on Chicago’s North Side, Diana Santillana Galeano had been dragged out of Rayito de Sol and handcuffed in front of parents and their children. By the time Chris arrived 15 minutes later, many of the day-care workers were either crying or hiding, some in the classrooms and others in the back of a pickup truck, terrified that ICE officers might come back. Chris’s 3-year-old son held his hand and looked up at his father with a quivering lip. “Seeing your teachers cry is confusing,” he says. “His little sad face broke my heart.”

When Chris (who asked to use a pseudonym because of his job) called his wife, Erin, to tell her the news, she was shocked. Santillana Galeano is the kind of teacher who celebrates each child’s milestones, she says, and had been so excited when their 1-year-old son recently started to walk. Then came the detention. “In that moment, she went from being this person who is kind and nurturing,” she says, “to someone being handcuffed in front of her co-workers and treated like a threat.”

Local journalists showed up on the scene, and a few hours later, a video of the arrest shot by a parent was circulating on social media. In it, Santillana Galeano screams and says “I have papers” in Spanish as the ICE officers pin her against a car. Even though school officials showed the agents her employment documents, according to the Washington Post, Santillana Galeano was taken away to a detention center.

Santillana Galeano fled Colombia in 2023 owing to safety threats, according to legal filings. She filed for asylum and was granted employment authorization until November 2029. But the Department of Homeland Security argued that the Biden administration exploited a “loophole” to approve her work status and claimed she paid a smuggler to bring her teenagers across the border into Texas last year. Homeland Security also maintained that officers tried to pull her over at a traffic stop before she went into the day care. Under Biden, ICE agents weren’t allowed to enter schools in most scenarios, a policy that Trump reversed as part of his larger immigration crackdown. This summer, the government launched “Operation Midway Blitz” in the Chicago area, which has led to more than 3,000 arrests and a string of horrific stories, including ICE agents killing a man, pepper-spraying a 1-year-old girl, and throwing flash-bang grenades during a raid on an apartment building.

On the day of Santillana Galeano’s arrest, local lawmakers held a press conference to condemn ICE’s actions, and parents in the day care’s neighborhood, some of whom are lawyers, began to mobilize. “We dropped everything,” says Aimee Karstens, whose 16-month-old son goes to Rayito de Sol. “Everyone used whatever resources they had.” While the day care shut down for the rest of the week, a group of almost 30 mothers on a text thread called “Mami’s de Rayito” found Santillana Galeano legal support, set up a GoFundMe that has since raised close to $160,000, called local politicians, and coordinated a meal train for the other day-care workers who were frightened by their colleague’s arrest. (A few days later, a different group of moms from Chicago’s suburbs got arrested while protesting outside the detention facility where Santillana Galeano was being held.) The Rayito parents also scrambled for child care; one mother, who has an in-person job, said her husband took meetings while looking after their 4-month-old baby and letting their 4-year-old watch TV.

In between making T-shirts that say “No Hate, No Fear, Everyone Is Welcome Here” and organizing rallies, parents were figuring out how to talk with their children about what had happened. Over the weekend, after passing a tree decorated with lights, Erin’s 4-year-old son asked, “What if Miss Diana isn’t back in time for Christmas?” “He knows that ICE took Miss Diana, but his brain is still so tiny,” she says. “There’s no playbook for this.” She and the other moms are struggling to explain the incident to their kids. “There was a gun in my child’s school,” says Karstens. “It just unravels this feeling of security and safety and trust that you have.” She is now worried that her Spanish au pair could be arrested at day-care pickup or while playing in the park with her two sons. Another Rayito mom’s 4-year-old is already afraid of ICE agents and clutches her arm while walking around the neighborhood. “Will the ICE agents be at school today?” her daughter, whose father is Indian, recently asked. “Why are they arresting Latinos?” The mother tells her, “’Your teacher will keep you safe. Mommy and Daddy will keep you safe.’ But I don’t even feel like I can promise that.”

Monday, the first day Rayito Del Sol opened its doors after the arrest, was an emotional one. Erin spoke with Santillana Galeano’s closest co-worker, who put on a smile for all of the children in spite of her red eyes. “I just instantly started crying because this is where it happened,” says Erin. “The teachers were brave enough to show up for our children.”

On Thursday, Santillana Galeano was released from ICE detention until her bond hearing next week. “I am so grateful to everyone who has advocated on my behalf, and on behalf of the countless others who have experienced similar trauma over recent months in the Chicago area,” she said in a statement. “I love our community and the children I teach, and I can’t wait to see them again.” Erin heard from the day-care center’s director that she might be back at work as soon as Monday. “It feels like our entire community can kind of exhale,” she says. “But at the same time, we know this isn’t the end.”