Local leaders in Illinois are calling for federal agents to stop using tear gas and other weapons against peaceful protesters, residents, and first responders near a suburban Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility, Block Club Chicago reports. 

For the past few weeks, organizers have demonstrated outside the ICE processing center in Broadview, a town about 13 miles from downtown Chicago, to protest stepped-up immigration enforcement. Village officials say agents have repeatedly fired tear gas, pepper balls, and rubber bullets at crowds, endangering both demonstrators and neighbors.

“ICE has to stop unprovoked, chemical arms attacks on peaceful protesters and on journalists. This behavior is not normal. This is not Putin’s Russia. This is the United States of America,” Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson said at a press conference Tuesday, according to the outlet. She was joined by other suburban mayors, Broadview’s police and fire chiefs, and former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

Officials also criticized a fence ICE erected outside the facility, calling it “illegally constructed” because it blocks a public street and access for emergency crews. “The federal government is not above our local laws,” Acting Fire Chief Matthew Martin said. “Each day this fence remains, the risk of tragedy increases.”

Broadview Police Chief Thomas Mills said agents have harassed him personally and that his department has opened three criminal investigations, including two alleged hit-and-runs and an incident where chemical agents were fired into a reporter’s car.

Leaders have asked Homeland Security to remove the fence and cooperate with local authorities. “ICE has to stop putting our residents, our police officers and firefighters, and American citizens in harm’s way,” Thompson said.

Lightfoot, speaking as a private citizen, said federal agents are “acting like an armed militia accountable to no one” and urged them to respect local laws. Officials said they are exploring legal action if their demands continue to be ignored.