ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Federal immigration agents forced open a door and detained a U.S. citizen in his Minnesota home at gunpoint without a warrant, then led him out onto the streets in his underwear in subfreezing conditions, according to his family and videos reviewed by The Associated Press.

ChongLy “Scott” Thao told the AP that his daughter-in-law woke him up from a nap Sunday afternoon and said that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were banging at the door of his residence in St. Paul. He told her not to open it. Masked agents then forced their way in and pointed guns at the family, yelling at them, Thao recalled.

“I was shaking,” he said. “They didn’t show any warrant; they just broke down the door.”

Amid a massive surge of federal agents into the Twin Cities, immigration authorities are facing backlash from residents and the local leaders for warrantless arrests, aggressive clashes with protestors and the fatal shooting of a mother of three.

“ICE is not doing what they say they’re doing,” St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her, a Hmong American, said in a statement about Thao’s arrest. “They’re not going after hardened criminals. They’re going after anyone and everyone in their path. It is unacceptable and un-American.”

Encounter caught on video

Thao, who has been a U.S. citizen for decades, said that as he was being detained he asked his daughter-in-law to find his identification but the agents told him they didn’t want to see it.

Instead, as his 4-year-old grandson watched and cried, Thao was led out in handcuffs wearing only sandals and underwear with just a blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

Videos captured the scene, which included people blowing whistles and horns and neighbors screaming at the more than a dozen gun-toting agents to leave Thao’s family alone.

Thao said agents drove him “to the middle of nowhere” and made him get out of the car in the frigid weather so they could photograph him. He said he feared they would beat him. He was asked for his ID, which agents earlier prevented him from retrieving.

Agents eventually realized that he was a U.S. citizen with no criminal record, Thao said, and an hour or two later, they brought him back to his house. There they made him show his ID and then left without apologizing for detaining him or breaking his door, Thao said.

DHS defends operation

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security described the ICE operation at Thao’s home as a “targeted operation” seeking two convicted sex offenders.

DHS stated that Thao lived with these two convicted sex offenders at the site of the operation and that he matched the description of the targets.

However, Thao’s family disputes this account, asserting that only Thao and his immediate family reside in the home, and that none of them appear on the Minnesota sex offender registry.

DHS did not respond to a request from The Associated Press seeking clarifications about the alleged sex offenders' identities.

Thao’s son, Chris Thao, stated that he had been stopped by ICE agents before they detained his father, and that the vehicle he was driving was borrowed from a cousin’s boyfriend who shares a name with another individual who has a sex offense conviction.

Family fled Laos after helping US

The family expressed deep anger over Thao’s treatment by U.S. authorities, recalling their history as refugees who fled Laos after supporting U.S. covert operations during the Vietnam War era.

ChongLy Thao’s adopted mother was a nurse who treated Hmong soldiers in the U.S. government’s “Secret War.”

Thao has announced plans to file a civil rights lawsuit against DHS and expressed feelings of insecurity in his own home.

“I don’t feel safe at all,” Thao said. “What did I do wrong? I didn’t do anything.”