'Surreal Moment for America': ICE Agents in Chicago Drag Children Out of Their Homes, Ransack Building​

Just hours after President Donald Trump said US soldiers should use Americans cities as "training grounds," federal law enforcement officials on Tuesday night descended upon an apartment complex in Chicago where witnesses say they broke down residents' doors, smashed furniture and belongings, and dragged dozens of them, including children, placed in U-Haul vans.

Local resident Rodrick Johnson, who lives in the building raided by Immigration and Customers Enforcement (ICE) agents, told the Chicago Sun-Times that federal officials broke down his door, put him in zip ties, and kept him detained outside the building for three hours before letting him go.

"I asked [agents] why they were holding me if I was an American citizen, and they said I had to wait until they looked me up,” he explained to the paper. “I asked if they had a warrant, and I asked for a lawyer. They never brought one.”

Pertissue Fisher, who also lives in the building, backed up Johnson's account and said that agents forcibly removed all residents from their homes regardless of their legal status.

"They just treated us like we were nothing," she told local news station ABC 7 Chicago. "They, like, piling us all up in the back on the other side, and it wasn't no room to move nowhere."

Ebony Sweets Watson, who lives across the street from the raided building, told the Chicago Sun-Times that she saw children, some of whom weren't even wearing clothes, dragged out of the building by ICE agents and then placed into U-Haul vans.

“It was heartbreaking to watch,” she said. “Even if you’re not a mother, seeing kids coming out buck naked and taken from their mothers, it was horrible.”

Watson also said that it appeared the federal agents had ransacked the building during the raid.

“Stuff was everywhere,” she said. “You could see people’s birth certificates, and papers thrown all over. Water was leaking into the hallway. It was wicked crazy.”

Dan Jones, a resident at the building, told the Chicago Sun-Times that he returned from work on Wednesday to find that several of his belongings, including electronics and furniture, were missing from his apartment, and that all of his clothes had been strewn across the floor. He said that he asked the Chicago Police Department for any information about what happened to his belongings in the wake of the ICE raid, but has so far received no response.

“I’m pissed off,” Jones told the paper. “I feel defeated because the authorities aren’t doing anything.”

Darrell Ballard, who witnessed the raid, told ABC 7 Chicago that it felt more like a military operation than law enforcement.

"We're under siege," he said. "We're being invaded by our own military."

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that 37 people were arrested during the raid, and it claimed some of them "are believed to be involved in drug trafficking and distribution, weapons crimes, and immigration violators."

American Immigration Council fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick said in a Thursday social media post that the raid represented "a surreal moment for America" that was a clear violation of residents' civil liberties.

"Needless to say, if the normal police ever pulled something like this—pulling every single person out of an apartment building and handcuffing them to run warrant checks—they would be sued into oblivion," he observed. "Yet ICE is going to get away with it entirely."

Reichlin-Melnick also said that, even if the agents had a valid warrant to enter the apartment complex, it was highly unlikely that warrant would extend to removing every single resident there.

"I am... DEEPLY skeptical that the warrant permitted them to smash down every door and arrest every person in the building," he wrote. "My gut says they went far beyond the warrant."