CHICAGO >> Chicago Public Schools prevented federal immigration officers from going into an elementary school on Chicago’s Southwest Side Friday and talking to students, according to school officials.

The agents showed up at 11:15 a.m. to Hamline Elementary School, located at 1548 W. 48th St. in the New City neighborhood, Principal Natasha Ortega said at a news conference. She said the school’s employees “followed the protocols that we’ve been trained and practiced and have discussed,” ensuring students’ safety.

“We will not open our doors for ICE, and we are here to protect our children and make sure they have access to an excellent education,” Ortega said. “We stand in solidarity with our families and the Back of the Yards community.”

School officials indicated the officers were from U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, however an ICE spokesperson denied in a statement that the encounter involved the agency. CPS didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

This immigration action appears to be the first at a Chicago school after President Donald Trump took office. Officials within Trump’s administration have indicated that large-scale raids to detain undocumented immigrants would begin this week in Chicago.

Trump reversed a policy this week that for more than a decade has prevented ICE from carrying out immigration enforcement in “sensitive locations,” such as healthcare facilities, daycares, churches, and schools. His executive orders have also sought to end birthright citizenship and deploy troops to enhance border security.

A woman named Sandra, who asked only to be identified by her first name, teared up as she recounted hearing earlier on Friday that ICE agents had been to the building.

Sandra, 28, had attended Hamline herself and was there to pick up her niece, she said. “Them being here, to me, crosses a boundary,” she said.

Sandra described herself as a “first-gen kid” and said she was prepared to defend her neighborhood against raids. She guessed that her niece had friends and classmates who might be targeted in a raid.

A CPS safe passage worker handed out a stack of “know your rights” pamphlets and cards to families walking by just east of the building. They’d started work an hour early at 1 p.m., she said. She hadn’t seen much of note around the school beyond more police presence, she said, but it had been a strange day anyway.

“These people are just scared,” she said, pressing another information card into a woman’s hand.