Tag: day care teacher

Federal agents released preschool teacher Diana Patricia Santillana Galeano on Wednesday night, freeing the beloved local educator whose arrest at a North Center day care made international news.

Santillana will return to Rayito De Sol Spanish Immersion Early Learning Center on Friday morning, where members of the community have rallied to show her support

“I am so grateful to everyone who has advocated on my behalf, and on behalf of the countless others who have experienced similar trauma over recent months in the Chicago area,” Santillana Galeano said in a statement released by her lawyers. “I love our community and the children I teach, and I can’t wait to see them again.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released her after a federal judge ruled that her mandatory detention without bond was illegal.

Santillana’s case has generated widespread backlash. In a video circulated online, federal agents are seen pulling the screaming woman, a mother of two from Colombia, through the glass vestibule at the Rayito de Sol Spanish Immersion Early Learning Center in North Center, in the early morning hours of Nov. 5.

School officials said Santillana, who cares for infants, had authorization to work in the day care and had undergone a background check. An agent did not present a warrant when he entered the building, the school’s staff said.

In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents targeted her in a traffic stop as she and an unidentified male passenger were driving early Wednesday.

It said she illegally entered the U.S. on June 26, 2023, and “was encountered by Border Patrol,” and that “the Biden administration released her into the U.S.”

However, questions remain whether the woman had been targeted prior to the traffic stop.