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Authorities announced Wednesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers did not target a Chicago daycare, but were pursuing an illegal immigrant who fled into the building — after multiple reports claimed a viral video shows a teacher being dragged outside.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said ICE officers arrested Colombian national Diana Patricia Santillana Galeano — previously released at the border under the Biden administration in 2023 — after she fled into the vestibule of a building following an attempted traffic stop Wednesday morning.
While the arrest drew public criticism, authorities said it did not occur inside the daycare itself and denounced Santillana Galeano for allegedly “recklessly endangering children” by entering the building.
The video shows two officers forcibly restraining Santillana Galeano as she screamed and struggled during her arrest outside Spanish Immersion Early Learning Center Rayito de Sol. Other apparent daycare employees could be seen trying to get to her after she was placed in the ICE vehicle, with one holding a small child.
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ICE agents detain a woman outside a daycare center, Wednesday, in Chicago. (Obtained by WFLD)
Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill, said that Santillana Galeano was a preschool teacher and was legally authorized to work in the country.
“ICE isn’t going after the worst of the worst. This morning, they took a preschool teacher without a warrant IN FRONT OF CHILDREN in my district,” he said in a post on X.
DHS has since condemned Quigley’s claims as “deliberately misrepresenting the facts.”
Multiple DHS sources told Fox News Digital that Santillana Galeano was not targeted as a preschool teacher, but as an undocumented immigrant who had been caught and released at the border under Biden administration policies on June 26, 2023.
Officials added that she allegedly has a history of endangering minors, citing that she told her children, aged 16 and 17, to cross the border unaccompanied last month.
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Diana Patricia Santillana Galeano was arrested Wednesday in front of a Chicago daycare. (DHS)
Every year, thousands of unaccompanied illegal immigrant children arrive at the U.S. border, putting those children at high risk of exploitation, abuse and trafficking without parents or guardians to protect them, according to DHS.
DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin clarified the situation on X, noting Santillana Galeano was arrested after officers attempted a targeted traffic stop on a vehicle registered to her.
She said the car was being driven by another man, who refused to comply even as officers activated sirens and emergency lights. The vehicle reportedly sped into a shopping plaza, where the incident — captured on video — unfolded.
“Law enforcement pursued the vehicle before the assailant sped into a shopping plaza where he and the female passenger fled the vehicle,” McLaughlin said. “They ran into a daycare and attempted to barricade themselves inside the daycare—recklessly endangering the children inside. The illegal alien female was arrested inside a vestibule, not in the school.”
Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., alleges ICE targeted a preschool teacher inside a Chicago daycare. (WFLD)
Upon her arrest, McLaughlin said Santillana Galeano provided false information about her identity and claimed she did not know the male driver, stating she had “picked him up from a bus stop.”
Authorities have not yet released additional information about the male assailant.
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Officials added that her children, smuggled into the U.S. near El Paso on Oct. 19 as unaccompanied minors, were taken into custody by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and placed in a UAC shelter in the Chicago area called “Heartland Int Children’s RC.”
DHS, ICE and Spanish Immersion Early Learning Center did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.