ICE raid on Chicago apartment building

Its 1am. Your family is fast asleep. Suddenly chaos erupts – masked agents break down your door, grab your kids and force everyone outside – where you are sorted by race, kids separated from parents some zip-tied in the courtyard, others stuffed into U-Haul vans. You see neighbors, some in pajamas, some naked – desperate to comprehend what’s happening. You are detained for hours – not one will tell you why. Eventually the masked men go away, leaving you and your neighbors free to return home – where you find your apartment has been ransacked and some of your things are missing. You can’t lock your broken door, or comfort your kids.

Nearly 90 years ago, during Kristallnacht – the night of broken glass – Nazi German leaders unleashed terror, burned 1,400 synagogues, and imprisoned 26,000 Jewish men in concentration camps.

On September 30, ICE agents terrorized residents of a 130-unitapartment building on the south side of Chicago, near the building I lived in while attending UChicago.

No warrants. Most units housed citizens or legal residents. Hundreds were terrorized – 37 were detained.

The Fourth Amendment prohibits warrantless searches.

Please join me in praying for the children and their families who were terrorized last week. And join me in calling on our government to rein in ICE. We all want safe neighborhoods for our families. As my grandmother would say, there is a right way and a wrong way to do things.

What happened in Chicago last week was wrong, terribly wrong.

Jeanne Dufort

Madison