CHICAGO — Archie Collins went to sleep the night of the raid like he often does: on the floor and hungry. He was up on the fifth floor of the five-story brick building at 7500 S. South Shore Drive, in Apartment 502. He had no gas for his stove. No electricity, except for that provided by an extension cord from a neighboring unit. The U.S. Postal Service stopped delivering mail long ago.
He didn’t hear the approaching helicopters. He didn’t see their spotlights shining through the windows, or hear the snipers land atop the roof, ready to take aim. He didn’t feel the presence of the federal agents, from ICE and the FBI, until they were at his door. He awoke only when they kicked it down. When they were upon him.
What happened in his building in the early-morning hours of Sept. 30 has become perhaps the most astonishing moment in a month of astonishing moments surrounding Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in and around Chicago since the start of the Department of Homeland Security’s so-called Operation Midway Blitz. A military-style deportation crackdown made for cameras and funded by taxpayers, the mission was announced on Sept. 8 with promises to “target the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens” in the city…