Chicago Tribune reports:

When a masked man grabbed Ernesto Diaz’s left shoulder and slammed him against a vehicle, he thought he was being robbed.

Diaz, 23, had been walking down Archer Avenue on the Southwest Side in late September, heading toward the CTA Orange Line for a trip downtown. Earbuds in, he was listening to music and said he barely registered the vehicle that pulled up near him. That was until he felt the pain in his shoulder.

Diaz felt confused and disoriented. He couldn’t hear because “Higher Power” by Coldplay was still playing in his ears. But when he craned his neck, and saw more than half a dozen federal agents surrounding him, he understood what was happening.

“I’m Hispanic and I’m dark (skinned), so that’s why they picked me up,” Diaz, a U.S. citizen, said. “It feels scary because I’m wearing a target — you know, pick me up because I’m this color. It shouldn’t be like that.”

Diaz is one of the five U.S. citizens and green card holders the Tribune spoke to who has either been questioned or detained by federal immigration agents during Trump’s Operation Midway Blitz for seemingly no other reason than being Latino, an experience they said was equal parts terrifying and frustrating.

It’s impossible to say just how many Chicagoans have experienced what experts say constitutes racial profiling since the immigration crackdown began. The Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly denied that it targets people based on race and said it’s going after the “worst of the worst.” But dozens of reports and videos have circulated in the past couple months — many affecting those working at manual labor jobs. [Continue reading…]