In 2016, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement entered a West Side home and put a 27-year-old mother in handcuffs.
The woman, who asked not to be named for her safety, was sleeping at 6 a.m. when agents knocked on the door, looking for relatives.
She didn’t answer questions, and was detained.
“They didn’t care if I had papers or not. All they wanted was, whoever looks Hispanic or whoever they believe is illegal they’ll arrest them,” she said over the phone on Monday.
It’s now nearly nine years later, but she still feels “trauma” from that experience.
On Monday, she went to Lorenzo De Zavala Elementary School in the city’s Inner West Side to report an inappropriate comment allegedly made by a teacher on social media about ICE deportations over the weekend.
She saw the comment on Friday while scrolling through TikTok, when a video came up on her For You Page.
The post is a photo of the ICE logo with NSYNC’s song “Bye Bye Bye” playing in the background. Added text partly reads, “Raid every school. Set up shop in ER’s.”
The comment allegedly written by a bilingual Pre-K teacher on a now-deleted account reads, “Come to San Antonio TX please.”
San Antonio Independent School District confirmed that the matter is under investigation.
“It made me so uncomfortable for the safety of the children. He should be protecting our kids, he shouldn’t be making those remarks especially with what’s going on today,” the parent said. “As guardians, we expect our kids to be at school safe and sound, and they’re elementary students. What harm did they do? They didn’t do anything.”
On Friday before discovering the comment, she had printed 200 Know Your Rights “red cards” for $20 and spent the school day passing them out to Hispanic businesses and local barber shops, some owned by Latinos in San Antonio including Hondurans and Cubans, she said.
Parents on Monday afternoon got a letter from the school principal about the incident.
“It has been reported to us that a staff member created social media posts over the weekend, and these posts are generating questions and concerns from our families. Please know we are addressing this situation so that our focus remains on teaching and learning,” the letter from SAISD stated.