The Chicago school district has sent multiple emails to families assuring them the district is prepared for a potential National Guard presence in the city after comments from President Donald Trump stating Chicago is next for deploying military force.
In the midst of the uncertainty, the city’s schools reiterated to parents and students that school is a safe place in a letter sent out Aug. 28. No families in the district are required to share their immigration status with Chicago Public Schools, and the district is committed to not working with or sharing student records with officers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE.
The concerns come after repeated remarks from Trump indicating his intent to send troops to Chicago to curb perceived violence in the city, despite a drop in crime rates in the last year. Last week, the Trump administration asked to use the Great Lakes Naval Base in North Chicago ahead of a potential “immigration operation.”
Then, Trump doubled down at an unrelated press conference Tuesday in the Oval Office. “We’re going in,” Trump said when asked about deploying the National Guard in Chicago. “I didn’t say when, but we’re going in.”
The letter also advises families and students to take extra safety precautions, including having a group of parents and students to walk to and from school together, creating a carpool group or buddy system while on public transportation, and sharing information quickly if needed.
Quick communication between community members has already started in some neighborhoods, Lowell Elementary School Local School Council member Magdalena Martinez said. If she hears that ICE officers are in the Humboldt Park neighborhood she spreads the word so everyone knows.
“The first place I tell is the school,” Martinez said.
Fear is especially apparent in immigrant communities, Martinez said. Grocery stores seem emptier since talk of the National Guard started. Parents are worried about leaving the house, let alone letting their children leave for school, she added.
“They’re scared of sending them to school because they don’t know if they’re going to pick up their kids,” Martinez said. “Our people are already scared. They don’t need to be more scared.”
The district solidified its stance on working with immigration enforcement last year when the Chicago board of education passed a resolution stating the district will not provide assistance to ICE in the enforcement of federal civil immigration law. It also states ICE is not permitted access to district facilities or personnel unless it has a criminal warrant.
For now, Martinez’s two granddaughters in Chicago schools are unaware of the potential threats their classmates might face. Ages 3 and 9, they are too small to know, she said, though they might soon be faced with National Guard officers in their neighborhood.
“That’s the reality, that they’re going to be seeing things like this and then we got to tell them, which is very hard to do, because you don’t want them to live in an environment where all have to be scared where we live and where we’re at or who we talk to,” Martinez said.
It is unclear if Trump will follow through on his deployment threats. The president’s use of the National Guard in Los Angeles during protests earlier this year was deemed illegal by a judge Tuesday morning.
“We don’t know when or even if this will happen, but I want our school communities to know that CPS is prepared,” Chicago schools interim CEO Macquline King said at a recent board of education meeting. “I know that anxiety among many families has been high since the new administration took office, so the possibility of an even greater federal presence in our city has been making this tension that much worse.”
