CHICAGO (AP) — Storming an apartment complex by helicopter as families slept. Deploying chemical agents near a public school. Handcuffing a Chicago City Council member at a hospital.

Activists, residents and leaders say increasingly combative tactics used by federal immigration agents are sparking violence and fueling neighborhood tensions in the nation’s third-largest city.

“They are the ones that are making it a war zone,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said Sunday on CNN. “They fire tear gas and smoke grenades, and they make it look like it’s a war zone.”

More than 1,000 immigrants have been arrested since an immigration crackdown started last month in the Chicago area. The Trump administration has also vowed to deploy National Guard troops in its agenda to boost deportations.

But U.S. citizens, immigrants with legal status and children have been among those detained in increasingly brazen and aggressive encounters which pop up daily across neighborhoods in the city of 2.7 million and its many suburbs.

Arriving by helicopter

Activists and residents were taking stock Sunday at an apartment building on Chicago’s South Side where the Department of Homeland Security said 37 immigrants were arrested recently in an operation that’s raised calls for investigation by Pritzker.

While federal agents have mostly focused on immigrant-heavy and Latino enclaves, the operation early Tuesday unfolded in the largely Black South Shore neighborhood that’s had a small influx of migrants resettled in Chicago while seeking asylum.

Agents used unmarked trucks and a helicopter to surround the five-story apartment building. NewsNation, which was invited to observe the operation, reported agents “rappelled from Black Hawk helicopters.” Agents then went door to door, woke up residents and used zip ties to restrain them.

Residents and the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, which canvassed the area, said those who were zip tied included children and U.S. citizens.

Rodrick Johnson, a U.S. citizen briefly detained, said agents broke through his door and placed him in zip ties.

“I asked if they had a warrant, and I asked for a lawyer,” the 67-year-old told the Chicago Sun-Times. “They never brought one.”

Dixon Romero with Southside Together, an organization that’s also been helping residents, said doors were knocked off the hinges.

“Everyone we talked to didn’t feel safe,” he said. “This is not normal. It’s not OK. It’s not right.”

Pritzker, a two-term Democrat, directed state agencies to investigate claims that children were zip tied and detained separately from their parents, saying “military-style tactics” shouldn’t be used on children. Several Democratic members of the Illinois congressional delegation met near the site Sunday, calling for an end to immigration raids.

DHS officials said they were targeting connections to the Tren de Aragua gang. Without offering details on arrests or addressing how children were treated, DHS said “some of the targeted subjects are believed to be involved in drug trafficking and distribution, weapons crimes, and immigration violators.”

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Saturday posted heavily edited video clips of the operation to X showing agents blasting through doors, helicopters and adults in zip ties, but music played over most of the roughly 1 minute video.