Stephanie Sy:
On Friday, school officials at a South Side elementary school refused to allow agents that they thought were with ICE into the school. They turned out to be Secret Service officers unrelated to immigration enforcement. School officials said fear of children being swept up in the dragnet drove the mistaken claim.
Lawrence Benito is with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. He says the Illinois TRUST Act and Chicago’s welcoming city ordinance currently prevent police from coordinating with ICE on any civil immigration enforcement, but worries so-called sanctuary laws are under threat.
Lawrence Benito, Executive Director, Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights: We’re asking people to make their voices heard, make sure that their elected officials know that this is not the America that they want to see happen, because I just don’t see how they get to the scale that they’re talking about without tearing families apart, without tearing mixed families apart, where you have maybe undocumented parents and citizen children.
What are we going to do in those situations?
