{"id":44729,"date":"2025-10-24T13:46:33","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T20:46:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=44729"},"modified":"2025-10-24T13:47:51","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T20:47:51","slug":"teachers-scrambled-after-ice-released-tear-gas-outside-a-chicago-elementary-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/10\/24\/teachers-scrambled-after-ice-released-tear-gas-outside-a-chicago-elementary-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Teachers Scrambled After ICE Released Tear Gas Outside a Chicago Elementary School"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Chicago teachers said they\u2019re dealing with traumatized students in underfunded schools \u2014 while the Trump administration spends millions to militarize American cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jessica Washington<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

October 19 2025 (TheIntercept.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"CHICAGO,<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Federal agents use tear gas on protesters in Chicago on Oct. 14, 2025. Photo: Joshua Lott\/The Washington Post via Getty Images<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maria Heavener had<\/strong> opened the windows of her first-grade classroom to let in the unusually warm October breeze when the sound of helicopters, sirens, and a flood of notifications compelled her to slam them shut. During a raid on a nearby grocery store, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had hurled tear gas canisters into a parking lot across the street from Chicago\u2019s Funston Elementary School, spreading a thick, choking smog toward the building while class was in session. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heavener had heard rumors that ICE was planning to detain unaccompanied minors and that schools could be a target, but this scenario had never crossed her mind. \u201cWe definitely didn\u2019t expect what happened,\u201d she said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t expect them to throw tear gas right outside of our school building.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For the last month, the Trump administration has kept Chicago under siege. Customs and Border Protection agents arrested a 15-year-old U.S. citizen <\/a>earlier this week <\/a>after unleashing tear gas into a crowded residential neighborhood. Earlier in October, masked federal agents raided a five-story apartment building in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Chicago<\/a> and zip-tied naked children<\/a> as they dragged their parents away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump administration claims that Chicago is unsafe and needs order, despite the fact that the city experienced its lowest homicide rate in 60 years <\/a>this summer. But instead of investing in underfunded schools<\/a> or attempting to eradicate poverty<\/a>, which have been shown to increase public safety, the administration is pouring millions into the militarization of American cities<\/a> and fighting a court battle to federalize the National Guard in Chicago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWe didn\u2019t expect them to throw tear gas right outside of our school building.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The Trump administration\u2019s war on immigrants has had a disastrous impact on the city\u2019s children, Chicago teachers told The Intercept. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe smoke bombs that they dropped in front of school right at dismissal, the detainment of grown-ups after they drop off their children, or as they\u2019re picking them up. All of that is violent. All of that is traumatic,\u201d said Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Chicago Teachers Union. \u201cAnd for the first time, that is what many students in this city are experiencing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heavener said she struggled to explain the events that occurred on October 3 to her class of 6 and 7-year-olds. \u201cA lot of them were sad, worried, scared, nervous,\u201d she said. \u201cSome of them said they\u2019re scared because they don\u2019t want their own family members to be taken away.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of her students became so overwhelmed that he had a panic attack. \u201cIt\u2019s very scary because this is their normal,\u201d said Heavener. \u201cYou start forming your memories more solidly around 4 or 5 years old, so they have some happy kindergarten memories. But now all of sudden, this is going to take over their experiences and worldview, and it\u2019s going to shape a lot for them, and it\u2019s traumatic, and they\u2019re all going to hold that in their bodies as they grow up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The stakes feel even higher at schools with older kids, where Heavener and other staff fear students will become targets. The recent arrest of the 15-year-old, Heavener said, has had a particular chilling effect.<\/strong> His lawyers allege that the teenager was detained in a federal facility for five hours without anyone telling his family where he was being held. The Department of Homeland Security denied that CBP \u201ckidnapped\u201d the teen, noting that \u201ca U.S. citizen teenager threw eggs and hit a CBP Officer in the head.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe media is sadly attempting to create a climate of fear and smear law enforcement. These smears are contributing to our ICE law enforcement officers facing 1,000% increase in assaults against them,\u201d DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin wrote in a statement. <\/strong>\u201cICE is not conducting enforcement operations at, or \u2018raiding,\u2019 schools. ICE is not going to schools to make arrests of children. Criminals are no longer be able to hide in America\u2019s schools to avoid arrest. The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement and instead trusts them to use common sense.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAttendance at a lot of [schools] is down,\u201d Gates told The Intercept. \u201cSenior nights have been cancelled. Fall sports and after-school activities have been sparsely attended \u2026 because of the unpredictability and the violence of Trump\u2019s troops.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt makes me want to cry,\u201d said Heavener. \u201cGenerally, the societal norm is that children are sacred, and we take care of our children. Now it seems like they\u2019re being targeted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Amid the chaos,<\/strong> Gates said that teachers, parents, students, and community organizers had come together to help make students safer. At Funston Elementary, for example, community members lined the streets to form a safe walking corridor for students and their families after the tear-gas incident. Heavener said the community has remained vigilant for ICE activity \u2014 although Facebook shuttered local groups<\/a> used to alert schools about ICE\u2019s presence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kathryn, an elementary school music teacher who wanted to use her first name to protect her school from being targeted by ICE, has tried to make her classroom a safe space for her students. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s even more important right now that we have stable, predictable classrooms and especially places where students can continue to be imaginative and experience joy and learn to work with other people,\u201d she said, \u201cand especially learn to work with people who are different from them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, she said normalcy and joy are difficult to achieve in the current environment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m worried every day,\u201d said Kathryn. \u201cI\u2019m worried that we\u2019ll have kids here waiting to be picked up and nobody will ever come for them, because we\u2019ve seen it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A middle school student was recently at home when ICE came to detain their parents. Through the process, Kathryn learned how to navigate the fact \u201cthat you can set up temporary guardianship for a minor if it\u2019s less than a year,\u201d she said. \u201cI would like to live in a world where that\u2019s not a thing I need to know, but I do.\u201d
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Despite claims from the Trump administration that Chicago is unsafe, Kathryn argues they\u2019re the ones who\u2019ve turned the streets into a war zone. \u201cI was born and raised in Chicago,\u201d said Kathryn. \u201cI\u2019ve never seen the city as unsafe as it is right now with them here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What makes it worse is that the money the administration is spending to deploy federal agents to patrol outside of elementary schools could genuinely make a difference in Chicago Public Schools. An estimate from the National Priorities Project found that a National Guard deployment to Chicago, currently blocked <\/a>in federal court, could cost roughly $1.59 million a day<\/a>. The latest Republican spending bill added $29.9 billion <\/a>to ICE\u2019s enforcement budget \u2014 a boost that nearly triples the $10.25 billion operating budget for the entire Chicago public school system, which includes 630 schools<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur afterschool budget was slashed by two-thirds here,\u201d said Kathryn. She pointed out that ICE is offering <\/a>\u201c$50,000 signing bonuses for people who are willing to kidnap other people,\u201d while she finds herself telling kids: \u201cSorry, you can\u2019t join the band right now because I don\u2019t have enough instruments.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Correction: October 21, 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This story has been updated to correct a quote from a Chicago teacher. She was describing a budget cut for her afterschool program, not the whole school.<\/em>Share<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contact the author:<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Jessica Washington<\/a>jessica.washington@theintercept.com<\/a>@jessica_m_wash<\/a>on X<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chicago teachers said they\u2019re dealing with traumatized students in underfunded schools \u2014 while the Trump administration spends millions to militarize American cities. Jessica Washington October 19 2025 (TheIntercept.com) Federal agents use tear gas on protesters in Chicago on Oct. 14, 2025. Photo: Joshua Lott\/The Washington Post via Getty Images Maria Heavener… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44729"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44729"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44731,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44729\/revisions\/44731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}