ICE – Immigration & Customs Enforcement – was accused of entering a Chicago elementary school – presumably to find children of illegals and taking them away, I suppose. Mayor Brandon Johnson and Governor J. B. Pritzker raised holy hell over it. How dare ICE even think about enforcing federal law.
Except…
…here is what actually happened, via Danielle Wallace’s article at the New York Post:
Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago public school officials falsely claimed last week that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrived at an elementary school, as President Donald Trump’s administration continues enforcement operations targeting violent illegal immigrant offenders in the sanctuary city.
ICE said its agents never arrived at Hamline Elementary School, located in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood, and the US Secret Service released a statement saying it was their agents who stopped by on Friday to investigate a threat made against an unspecified government official. Chicago Public Schools later admitted their mistake, citing a “misunderstanding,” but affirmed that the school system will not coordinate with federal immigration authorities.
In front of local news cameras on Friday, Chicago Public Schools Chief Education Officer Bogdana Chkoumbova told reporters that earlier that morning ICE agents “showed up” at Hamline, but “school staff followed CPS established protocols.”
“They kept ICE agents outside of the school and contacted CPS’s Law Department and CPS’s Office of Safety and Security for further guidance,” Chkoumbova said. “The ICE agents were not allowed into the school and were not permitted to speak to any students or staff members. Here is the bottom line: Our students and staff are safe…. We will not coordinate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.”
“We will not open our doors for ICE, and we are here to protect our children and make sure they have access to an excellent education,” Hamline Principal Natasha Ortega said at the same press conference, according to video published by WMAQ-TV. “We stand in solidarity with our families and the Back of the Yards community.”
As you can see, the claim about ICE was 100% false. But it did provide Chicagoans, and the rest of us, with an opportunity to hear how the people they elected to office feel regarding illegal aliens and federal law enforcement.
I’m especially intrigued by Principal Natasha Ortega’s claim that “we are here to protect our children and make sure they have access to an excellent education”.
FYI: for the 2023-2024 school year, Chicago’s high schools showed a graduation rate of 84.1%. An all-time high.
Are you impressed?
Before you answer, however, please be advised that, in this same year, Chicago’s 11th graders had a math proficiency rate of just 18.3%. And 22.4% read at grade level.
In other words, Chicago’s public schools are sending students out of its high schools waving degrees in their hands…but, in reality, have left a vast majority of those students without even the basic tools needed to function effectively in the real world.
That is an excellent education? WHERE?
But look at the bright side. These same schools, with the help of the Mayor and Governor, are absolutely dedicated to making sure that illegal aliens get the same wonderful education that legal resident students get…although, given that most illegals speak little or no English, there will have to be accommodations in class for them to understand what they are not learning, so the results will probably be less, er, impressive.
Chicago is a mess. And the voters, given a chance to oust the people and the party which has brought them to this level, decided to re-elect Governor Pritzker, and to replace hard-left Mayor Lori Lightfoot with even harder-left Brandon Johnson.
I guess they like things just as they are. It’s all for the children, you see…..
