But they were US law enforcement agents, rappelling from a Black Hawk helicopter and swarming the 130-unit building he lives in. Once inside, they kicked down doors, emptied bookshelves, and overturned mattresses.By dawn, at least 37 of Polk’s neighbors, nearly all Venezuelan nationals, would be in the custody of the US government, part of President Trump’s plan to crack down on illegal immigration.Trailed by drones and a camera crew, federal agents with their guns drawn carried out one of the most aggressive immigration operations in recent memory. The raid has become a defining image of the Trump administration’s surge of federal agents into Chicago, where masked immigration officers for weeks have been chasing down people suspected of being in the country illegally.Get Starting PointA guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.Enter EmailAnd while those arrests have drawn fierce protests, the apartment building raid, which took place on Sept. 30, raised even more concerns. In their effort to capture Venezuelans, agents led by the US Border Patrol pulled dozens of American citizens from their apartments in the middle of the night, pointing their guns at sleepy men and women before zip-tying them and taking them outside.The operation also highlighted the extent to which immigration enforcement and crime-fighting have become intertwined as bevies of officers from various federal agencies have been sent into American cities. The building, targeted by Border Patrol because immigrants lacking legal status lived there, has long been a hotbed of drug use and violence, residents said.There have been nearly 500 calls to emergency services regarding the building so far this year, records show, and the city and a bank had been pressuring the landlord to make improvements. Some residents said after the raid that they hoped it might give the building a new start.But what unfolded that night was an ordeal spanning several hours that left residents, Venezuelans and Americans alike, terror-stricken and humiliated. They bolted out of their beds at the sound of heavy footsteps in the darkened hallways, splintering doors, flash-bang grenades, and barked commands. Restrained at the wrists, interrogated, and separated by race and ethnicity, residents were forced onto buses while armed federal agents checked their names and records, determining whether they were living in the country legally or not.Polk and his brother, Nate Howard, were not immigrants. But they were forced from their apartment anyway, and his brother was arrested after a federal agent found that he had missed a court date related to a years-old drug charge.“I don’t understand how they decided who they can do that to,” Polk said. “They didn’t treat people like they were American.”On this, the residents of 7500 S. South Shore Drive could agree: The building was full of danger.The conditions inside were squalid, with mold, broken pipes, and the persistent reek of urine in the darkened stairwells.“Drugs, gangs, prostitution,” said Twana Pickens, 44, who had lived in the building for three years until she moved out this summer. “Anything illegal? Name it. It happened there. It’s just a very unsafe environment for people who just want to come home, go to work, and try to raise their families there.”Former residents said elevators were routinely broken, the mail was not delivered, and trash was regularly left in the hallways. One person said she was once followed by a man with his penis in his hand, asking for sex.Steven Jordan, 34, said he had long lived within a few blocks of the apartment building and knew it as a place where people bought drugs and went to get warm in the winter.“A lot of people go up in there because there are empty apartments and no locks on a lot of the doors,” he said.Residents said that the Americans and the Venezuelans in the building generally left each other alone, but that the immigrants sometimes had conflicts among themselves and upset other tenants.“Some of them were bad boys, I must say,” said Eleanor McMullen, 64, who lives on the third floor. “Sometimes they would break doors and bust the lights out. Foolish stuff, cause they were young.”At the time of the raid, the owner, Trinity Flood, a Wisconsin woman who purchased the apartment building in 2020 for $11.3 million, had been under legal pressure to improve conditions.Flood did not return calls and emails seeking comment. Corey Oliver, the owner of Strength in Management, the property management company that handled the property, also did not return requests for comment.Wells Fargo had sued Flood in April, seeking to foreclose on three Chicago apartment buildings that she had purchased in 2020 for about $18 million, including the one on South Shore Drive.Chicago officials met with property managers in June and instructed them to install burglar bars on vacant units and to work with police to remove squatters. A lawyer for the city wrote in August of flooding in the laundry room, urine in the stairwell, and “armed occupants,” with criminal activity and shootings taking place.Flood’s lawyers told the court on Sept. 26 that the owner had spent $2 million on repairs, maintenance, security, and evictions since 2020. They said that managers had “invested hundreds of hours working with law enforcement” to stop squatters and criminals from entering the building.In response to the continuing complaints, the judge set a hearing on an emergency motion for the appointment of a receiver, giving the parties a court date of Oct. 1.About 24 hours before the hearing, federal agents raided the building.The operation began with a confidential tip, officials said.Officials have not said who tipped them off, but records show that agents carried out the raid with the consent of the owner, and that they targeted apartments that they were told were not currently being rented and were presumably occupied by squatters.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.