Education
Immigration Agents Detain Man Outside Chicago Charter School, Officials Say
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security logo pictured in a file photo. (memoriesarecaptured / iStock)
A man was detained outside a Chicago charter school Wednesday morning, apparently by agents with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, according to charter officials.
In a letter to families Wednesday, officials with the Acero charter school network said the individual was taken into custody by ICE agents.
An ICE spokesperson on Thursday confirmed its agents arrested 37-year-old Francisco Andrade-Berrera — whom they identified as a citizen of Mexico — without incident. ICE in its statement claimed Andrade-Berrera is “a known member of a violent street gang with criminal convictions for drug trafficking, gang loitering, and damage to property,” whom they said was previously “removed from the U.S. to his home country in 2005 and 2013.”
The arrest was made around 8:15 a.m. near the corner of 51st Street and St. Louis Avenue in the Gage Park neighborhood, just outside the campuses of Acero’s Soto High School and Idar Elementary School.
According to the letter — which was signed by Elizabeth Obrzut and Nicolle Macias, the principals of Soto and Idar, respectively — agents from ICE and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives detained the individual, who was in their vehicle along with two Acero students.
Those students were not detained, according to the letter, and were escorted into their respective schools by the Acero administration.
Per the letter, agents “did not attempt to nor were they permitted to enter” either of the school campuses.
An ATF spokesperson said that while that agency “is assisting Department of Homeland Security and other federal law enforcement partners with their immigration enforcement efforts,” in order to “ensure operational security and the safety of our agents and partners, ATF does not disclose details of enforcement activities.”
According to Helena Stangle, Acero’s chief culture officer, the charter network has provided its administrators with “intensive training” for dealing with federal agents so they can train school-based teams and share those practices with parents and the school community.
The Chicago Teachers Union, which had already planned a vigil Wednesday after CPS announced it would be saving only four of seven Acero charter campuses slated for closure, said in a statement that Acero parents “witnessed law enforcement agents that are being identified as ICE target and arrest a father in front of his children as he dropped them off for school.”
“I don’t care what agency they turn out to be, targeting a father as he tries to provide an education to his children at their place of learning is a deliberate act of terror on behalf of this government,” CTU President Stacy Davis Gates said in a statement.
A CPS spokesperson declined to comment Wednesday afternoon and referred questions to Acero officials.
This marks the second time federal agents have conducted operations at or near a Chicago school since President Donald Trump — who promised to carry out the largest deportation operation in American history — was sworn into office last month.
Days after that inauguration, agents attempted to enter Hamline Elementary in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. Though CPS and city officials initially identified those agents as members of ICE, it was later learned they were in fact U.S. Secret Service agents conducting an investigation into a threat.
“Our original communication was a result of a misunderstanding, reflective of the fear and concerns in the community amid the new administration’s focus on undocumented immigrants,” CPS said in a statement at that time. “Here’s what happened: Two individuals showed up at the school door and presented identification that includes the name Department of Homeland Security, the federal agency that oversees ICE. School officials proceeded to respond to the agents with the understanding that they were from ICE, amid rumors and reports that the agency was in the community.”
Heather Cherone contributed to this report.
Note: This story was originally published Feb. 26, 2025, and has been updated.
