Residents of an apartment building in the South Shore of Chicago were subject to a violent and harrowing immigration raid in the early hours of Tuesday morning, according to multiple local news reports. One witness told The Chicago Sun-Times that kids were being separated from their parents and yanked out of the building without clothes on. Another said that federal agents tried to knock down his door in the middle of the night. And a third, who is a U.S. citizen, said he was zip-tied by agents and detained for hours. “It was heartbreaking to watch,” Ebony Sweets Watson, a resident from across the street, told The Sun-Times. “Even if you’re not a mother, seeing kids coming out buck naked and taken from their mothers, it was horrible.”People’s apartments were reportedly ransacked after federal agents busted down their doors and left the units open following the raid. Helicopters and dozens of law enforcement officers reportedly circled the building as part of the sweep. “They just treated us like we were nothing,” Pertissue Fissure, a building resident, told ABC7.A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told ABC7 that 37 people had been arrested as part of an “enforcement operation” at the South Shore building. “Some of the targeted subjects are believed to be involved in drug trafficking and distribution, weapons crimes, and immigration violators,” DHS claimed.The raid took place as Trump has surged federal agents to Chicago for immigration enforcement and as he’s also threatened to deploy troops to the city for a purported crackdown on crime. In early September, Trump began sending federal agents, including many who’ve been visible in prominent locations in the city. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has warned that the administration is trying to send 100 military troops to the state as well. This week’s raid underscores the brutality of the administration’s immigration enforcement efforts, which have included the shooting of 38-year-old Silverio Villegas Gonzalez during a traffic stop near Chicago. Chicago immigration advocates condemned the South Shore raid for its violent tactics and the fear it’s perpetuated in local communities.“Hundreds of masked agents knocking down doors and dragging families out in the middle of the night,” Veronica Castro, of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said in a press briefing. “It’s not right.”Close