A Nigerian man living in Unit 242 was jolted awake by a loud boom during the military-style raid on the Chicago apartment complex that night. Tolulope Akinsulie rose from his bed to find heavily armed federal agents storming into his apartment. He then felt the jaws of a large dog clamp down on his right ankle, sending him crashing to the floor. Akinsulie howled in agony as the dog ripped into the flesh of his ankle, thighs, hip, and wrist. Farther down the hall, agents held a Venezuelan mother and her 22-year-old son at gunpoint, dragging them from their apartment to another unit. There, they witnessed agents strike a man with what appeared to be the butt of a rifle and kick another man who was lying on the ground. As he looked on, her son started hyperventilating. “Here’s another one,” the agents said, referring to a Mexican man from Unit 502, before they zip-tied his hands behind his back and led him out of the building. Agents informed the man that he was not welcome in the United States, confiscated his Chicago identification card, and tore it up in front of him. While a great deal has already been documented about the events of September… On a midnight raid by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, fresh accounts from 17 men, women, and children detained that night depict a brutal and terrifying picture of how federal agents carried out the operation. Their descriptions underpin administrative claims filed Tuesday on their behalf against DHS and other federal agencies involved in the predawn raid in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood. The claims represent the tenants’ initial move to hold the government accountable and seek millions of dollars in damages for the agents’ conduct during the operation, a pivotal episode in the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement campaign in Chicago.
