A parent dropping off two students at an Acero charter school on the Southwest Side was detained Wednesday morning by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, according to a letter from the charter network’s leadership sent to parents.
Francisco Andrade-Berrera, 37, was arrested by ICE Chicago agents without incident Wednesday, according to an agency spokesman. ICE has alleged that Andrade-Berrera, a Mexican citizen, is a “known member of a violent street gang, with criminal convictions for drug trafficking, gang loitering and damage to property,” the spokesman wrote in an email to the Tribune. Andrade was “previously removed from the U.S. to his home country in 2005 and 2013” the spokesman wrote in the email.
Andrade’s arrest on the campus of two Acero schools, Victoria Soto High School and Jovita Idar Elementary, led Acero officials to immediately implement “Community Wellness Protocols” to “maintain the safety and security” of the schools’ community, according to a letter sent to parents from the schools’ principals, Elizabeth Obrzut and Nicolle Macias. Chicago Public Schools’ Office of Safety and Security was also engaged, according to the letter.
ICE agents did not attempt to enter either school, according to the letter. ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The network of 15 charter elementary and high schools said focused support will be made available for those impacted by the event. Due to how “stressful and upsetting” the situation may have been on the school’s community, both schools will have additional social work support available for students, Helena Stangle, chief culture officer at Acero Schools said in an emailed statement to the Tribune.
Acero “has and will continue to share the Civil Rights Resource Hub with all of our school communities and regularly distributes information about stand-alone Know Your Rights opportunities.”
The school network’s online information center, known as the “Civil Rights Resource Hub,” is updated weekly and includes direct contact information for Acero staff members “positioned to support our school community,” Stangle said.
Three officers were spotted outside the school Wednesday morning in normal-looking cars and clothes, said Evelyn Aguayo, a member of the rapid response team for the community organizing group Increase the Peace Chicago. Aguayo said photos of the agents circulated among response groups later in the afternoon.
The ICE arrest occurred about a month after CPS incorrectly reported that ICE agents tried to enter Hamline Elementary in Back of the Yards in late January. The two officers who tried to enter Hamline were later reported to be with Secret Service, not ICE.
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Aguayo and her team have been working to disseminate Know Your Rights information to communities such as Gage Park and Back of the Yards, she said. But after Wednesday’s ICE arrest, she said that work is more urgent.
“These students have a right to be dropped off without trauma,” she said. “I do think a lot of families are going to be scared to take their kids to school.”
The second Trump administration’s promise to swiftly deport immigrants in the country without legal permission is just one of the fears Acero’s community of 15 elementary and high schools is facing.
The arrest occurred just a day before the Chicago Board of Education plans to vote to shutter three Acero schools at the end of the school year despite vowing in December to keep them open.
A unanimous vote by the school board in December passed a resolution that called for the district to fund a bailout for Acero, allowing all seven locations the charter network said it would close to remain open next school year. However, according to a resolution included in the agenda for the board’s Thursday meeting, the original resolution will likely no longer continue as planned.
The December resolution also instructed CPS to convert five of the Acero charter network’s locations into district-managed schools and take over operations at the start of the 2026-2027 school year.
The remaining two schools were initially expected to close at the end of the 2025-2026 school year and set to be evaluated by CPS for “viability” to become district-run schools.
Following a joint analysis by CPS and Acero, the funding required to keep the vulnerable schools open would be above the maximum funding CPS is legally able to provide.
The district said it is working to find a resolution that best serves families and students and will continue conversations with Acero.
“Where financially and legally possible, the District continues working to keep as many of the Acero campuses open as possible,” CPS said in a statement. “CPS remains committed to supporting students, families and staff in finding a path forward and communicating all options to those impacted by potential Acero closures.”
On Wednesday evening, a small group of parents, students and CTU organizers gathered outside Rufino Tamayo Elementary in Gage Park holding signs and plastic candles to protest the potential closing of the school.
They spoke about the ICE arrest that happened in the neighborhood earlier in the day at Idar Elementary, less than a mile away.
“It’s not fair what they’re doing to our students. They have enough trauma. They don’t need more,” said Gloria Miranda, whose child attends Tamayo. “The mothers here will not stay silent. We will demand more.” When Maribel Arellano heard about the ICE arrest at Idar, she thought it might have happened at Tamayo, where her 9-year-old son, Ysael, is in fourth grade.
Arellano is from Mexico but came to the United States over 20 years ago, she said. She looked around at the small, mostly Spanish-speaking crowd Wednesday and said she thought many people opted not to come because they were scared by what happened earlier in the day.
She said Ysael has been taking the news of the closures the hardest.
“He’s scared of losing his community. All of his friends. His teachers,” she said.