CHICAGO – Juan Manuel Armenta was at a bus stop en route to pick up his paycheck when he was approached by several armed men. The Department of Homeland Security had just started “Operation Midway Blitz” and was surging immigration officers into the city. On that September afternoon, Armenta became one of their first arrests.
Three days later, DHS included Armenta’s mug shot in a press release titled “Pedophiles, Abusers, Rapists, and Other Violent Thugs Arrested.” It described Armenta, who concedes he crossed the border illegally more than three decades ago, as a “criminal illegal alien” with arrests for armed robbery and drunken driving. The release did not mention that the 2013 DUI allegation had been reduced to reckless driving and that police had declined to charge him in the 2006 armed robbery.
“I’ve never touched a gun in my life,” Armenta said in a telephone interview from Mexico, where he was quickly deported…