MOUNT PROSPECT — Kim Fisher was arriving home from a Sunday morning workout with her husband when she saw them: at least three people in fatigues and masks coming out from her backyard, stepping around a chain link fence.

“And I said, ‘What the heck is that?’” said Fisher, a 49-year-old mother of three. “I did not say heck.”

The Fisher family was just one Mount Prospect household roiled by the presence of masked agents, a handful of circling unmarked cars and a helicopter overhead. Neighbors and advocates said a man being detained by federal immigration agents ran away in handcuffs, prompting a manhunt in the northwest suburb of Chicago as officers searched backyards and stopped vehicles.

Several agents had badges and vests that read U.S. Border Patrol or Customs and Border Protection, according to multiple photos and videos from witnesses viewed by the Tribune. Federal agents at the scene said that they were in pursuit of someone who they said escaped into the neighborhood and later called him a “dangerous criminal” and a “Venezuelan gang member.”

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the federal Customs and Border Protection, could not immediately be reached for comment.

The operation was part of increased federal enforcement activity under the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz” in the Chicago area since early September, during which 1,500 arrests have been made, the Department of Homeland Security has reported. The sight of agents chasing people and loading them into unmarked vehicles has become common throughout Chicago and its suburbs. With no immediate regard for citizenship or legal status, the agents have repeatedly detained people first and sought information about them later.

In Mount Prospect, the Sunday operation — which stretched from about 11 a.m. into the early afternoon — resulted in multiple neighbors videotaping agents, yelling expletives at them and asking them to leave, against a suburban backdrop of falling leaves, brick houses and inflatable Halloween decorations in a predominantly white area.

Two of Fisher’s three children, ages 17 and 20, were home alone when the agents were in their backyard, she said. She and her husband had come home from playing wallyball, a combination of racquetball and volleyball, when they saw the agents emerging from their yard, which is under construction.

One of the agents told them that they were pursuing an individual who went into their backyard and left a jacket on their fence, Fisher said. But she said she knew the article of clothing had been there for several days. At that point, she said, she lost patience with the agents and repeatedly asked them to leave.

“I was so angry that I was literally shaking,” Fisher said. She said she might have considered allowing law enforcement onto her property if they had explained their goals and asked first, but they did not.

A Palatine resident, who requested that her name not be used and was visiting her partner in nearby Des Plaines, said she saw what appeared to be federal agents chasing a person into oncoming traffic at a nearby commercial intersection just before 11 a.m. on Sunday. She said she and her partner were on a normal coffee run to Dunkin’ Donuts but decided to follow them out of curiosity and ended up at the Fishers’ front door, where she videotaped the agents.

“It was very strange,” she said. “Just very distressing. … It’s in our own backyard (that) this is happening.”

Lisa Porter, who lives a couple of blocks away from Fisher, had to take deep breaths before describing her interactions with agents. She yelled at Border Patrol agents parked near her house to leave for several minutes in the early afternoon, she said, inspired by videos she had seen of Chicago residents who had chased ICE agents out of their neighborhoods.

“Just based on how I feel after this, I cannot imagine — or, I see what people are going through, and it is unspeakable,” Porter said. “And I’m a white lady who’s sitting in a nice suburb in Chicago.”

It wasn’t clear whether agents had detained the person they said they were looking for Sunday. They left the area around 1:30 p.m.

On social media, local rapid response advocates said they had received reports of federal immigration enforcement activity in Mount Prospect, but by the time they arrived at the scene, the community “had already taken action.” Only a few minutes earlier, the advocates said, neighbors and residents had interrupted the operation with honks and whistles until the agents left.

A similar scene of community resistance played out in Rolling Meadows, another suburb just west of Mount Prospect, where videos shared to social media showed federal officials — including agents wearing CBP garb — outside La Michoacana ice cream shop on Algonquin Road. Against a loud backdrop of car honks, passersby filmed agents driving away in their vehicles. In one video, an agent can be seen pointing a weapon toward bystanders from the back seat of a truck with the window rolled down.

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(Chicago Tribune’s Stacey Wescott contributed.)

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