On Wednesday, officials clarified that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) did not specifically target a daycare in Chicago. Instead, they were tracking an undocumented immigrant who had entered the facility after fleeing, contrary to viral reports suggesting a teacher was forcibly removed.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) explained that ICE officers apprehended Diana Patricia Santillana Galeano, a Colombian national. She had been previously released at the border under the Biden administration in 2023. The incident began after she evaded a traffic stop and sought refuge in the building’s entryway.

Despite public backlash over the arrest, officials emphasized that it occurred outside the daycare itself. They criticized Santillana Galeano for “recklessly endangering children” by entering the premises during her escape.

Footage from the scene captures two officers restraining Santillana Galeano, who can be seen resisting and yelling during the arrest near the Spanish Immersion Early Learning Center Rayito de Sol. The video also shows what appear to be daycare employees attempting to intervene, including one holding a young child, after she was placed in an ICE vehicle.

ICE agents restrain a woman outside a Chicago daycare on Wednesday. (Image courtesy of WFLD)

Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill, said Santillana Galeano was a preschool teacher and was legally authorized to work in the country.

“ICE isn’t going after the worst of the worst. This morning, they took a preschool teacher without a warrant IN FRONT OF CHILDREN in my district,” he said in a post on X.

DHS has since condemned Quigley’s claims as “deliberately misrepresenting the facts” and said similar reports have been “inaccurate and false.”

“Work authorization does NOT confer any type of legal status to be in the U.S.” the agency said. “The illegal alien’s work authorization was approved by the Biden administration, which exploited this loophole to help facilitate the invasion of our country.”

Multiple DHS sources told Fox News Digital that Santillana Galeano was not targeted as a preschool teacher but as an undocumented immigrant who had been caught and released at the border under Biden administration policies June 26, 2023. 

Officials added that she allegedly has a history of endangering minors, citing that she told her children, ages 16 and 17, to cross the border unaccompanied last month. DHS said she may have facilitated human smuggling by allegedly hiring individuals to carry out the activity.

Diana Patricia Santillana Galeano was arrested Wednesday in front of a Chicago daycare. (DHS)

Every year, thousands of unaccompanied illegal immigrant children arrive at the U.S. border, putting those children at high risk of exploitation, abuse and trafficking without parents or guardians to protect them, according to DHS.

DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin clarified the situation on X, noting Santillana Galeano was arrested after officers attempted a targeted traffic stop on a vehicle registered to her.

She said the car was being driven by a man who refused to comply even as officers activated sirens and emergency lights. The vehicle reportedly sped into a shopping plaza, where the incident — captured on video — unfolded.

“Law enforcement pursued the vehicle before the assailant sped into a shopping plaza where he and the female passenger fled the vehicle,” McLaughlin said. “They ran into a daycare and attempted to barricade themselves inside the daycare, recklessly endangering the children inside. The illegal alien female was arrested inside a vestibule, not in the school.”

DHS emphasized that Santillana Galeano did not fully enter the daycare as the second set of doors of the vestibule was locked, leading ICE agents to “NOT arrest her in front of children.”

Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., alleges ICE targeted a preschool teacher inside a Chicago daycare. (WFLD)

McLaughlin said Santillana Galeano provided false information about her identity and claimed she did not know the male driver, stating she had “picked him up from a bus stop.”

Authorities have not yet released additional information about the male assailant.

Officials added that her children, smuggled into the U.S. near El Paso on Oct. 19 as unaccompanied minors, were taken into custody by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and placed in a UAC shelter in the Chicago area called Heartland Int Children’s RC.

“President Trump and Secretary Noem are restoring the rule of law in the U.S. and directing ICE to target criminal illegal aliens,” DHS said. “More than 70% of all ICE arrests are of aliens with pending charges and convictions in the U.S. “

ICE and Spanish Immersion Early Learning Center did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.