Mother taken into ICE custody during child preschool drop-off

krem.com · By Sharon Yoo

The family shared with preschool leadership that she was pulled over on her way to drop-off, and ICE followed her there. ISSAQUAH, Wash. — An Issaquah community is rallying for a mother taken into ICE custody while dropping her child off at daycare Thursday morning. A Ring doorbell mounted on the door of the Learning Nest Preschool in Issaquah caught the last moments a mother had with her child before she was loaded into an unmarked SUV. KING 5 is aware of her identity but is not identifying her due to the delicate nature of the situation. In the doorbell footage, the mother can be heard speaking in Spanish to a teacher inside. She said "I'm not sure if they're official, and I imagine they are ICE." She kissed her kid and dropped him off. "She was being followed by ICE; she was like, 'I don't know what to do, I just need help, I think I need to just hand you over my child,'" Fatima Escareno said. Escareno is the owner and director of The Learning Nest Preschool. "In the meantime she was saying goodbye to her child. She was kissing him telling him, never forget, I love you so much." Other parents like Bill Brower caught the tail end of that goodbye. He too, was dropping his daughter off at The Learning Nest. "We had some gentleman come up to the school and grab a mother during drop off," Brower said. "Pretty fast, pretty concerning, pretty confusing when it happened." After that, Escareno said the agents returned. Four minutes after the mother rang the doorbell, an agent, wearing an MLB baseball cap, a military-style vest with a gun in the front, rang the doorbell again. In the footage, the agent can be heard saying "she's probably..." and then he mouths what seems to be the word 'illegal.' Behind the door is a preschool teacher. "She didn't know what to do, if she should open the door or not; she was also getting advice and calling me, saying, 'there's an officer here who wants to come in,'" Escareno said. In the video with the agent, he eventually leaves, saying "rain check." Escareno took that to mean they might come back, and decided to close the preschool Friday. "I'm getting questions of. 'hey my skin is darker, I obviously look Hispanic; am I in danger?' Getting those questions is difficult for me because I cant say no you're not in danger," Escareno said. "From the lens of a father, having men come up to a school unidentified with weapons trying to get into the school is a little scary," Brower added. KING 5 is aware of the mother's identity and have looked her up in ICE's detainee locater system. It shows she is currently detained at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma. Issaquah Police confirmed it was not involved in this incident, and the department said it wasn't aware of it until news made the rounds. ICE has not responded to our requests for confirmation of the incident, and answers to why the mother was taken into custody. Escareno, the preschool owner, said the family told her the mother doesn't have a criminal history and is currently going through the process of seeking asylum in the United States.