1. United States
2. Wash.
3. Letter

The terrifying midnight raid last week in Chicago marks a turning point in the erosion of American liberty. What happened there is state terror on U.S. soil. Reports confirm that citizens were detained without warrants, homes were ransacked, and families terrorized under the pretext of targeting a foreign gang. With the Supreme Court allowing agents to detain people based solely on their appearance or language, the constitutional guarantees of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments hang by a thread. DHS, which effected this raid, has embraced imagery tied to racist extremism on its social media, mocking the people it targets. When a federal agency echoes the symbols and language of hate, they are no longer protecting the homeland—they are attacking it. No federal agency should ever break into a citizen’s home without cause, deny access to counsel, or operate above the law. They must be bound by the Constitution. I urge you to work with your colleagues in Congress to launch immediate oversight into DHS and ICE operations, demand full public accounting for the Chicago raid and others like it, and suspend funding for any agency that refuses to abide by due process.