Several Tennesseans formed a human chain to help their neighbor get back into his home after federal immigration agents tried to take him into custody, according to a new report.

The incident unfolded Monday morning in Hermitage, a Nashville neighborhood, when the man got into his van with his son — but an Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicle blocked him in, local station WTVF reported.

Nearby residents quickly came to his aid — bringing father and son water, gas and wet rags so they could stay in their van over the next few hours, according to the report.

“We made sure they had water, they had food,” neighbor Felishadae Young told the station. “We put gas back in the vehicle when they were getting low just to make sure they were OK.”

ICE ultimately left the scene without taking the man into custody.

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation officers were seeking a convicted criminal alien ICE fugitive with an outstanding removal order in metro Nashville July 22 when they were encountered by a small group of protestors,” a spokesman said in a statement. “Out of an abundance of caution for the safety of all persons involved, ICE personnel subsequently made the decision to depart without making an arrest to deescalate the situation.”

At some point after the agency’s departure, neighbors formed a human chain around the van to allow father and son to run into their home, video posted to Facebook by Nashville Noticias shows.

Then they formed a chain once again to help the family into a car so they could leave their home.

“I know they’re gonna come back, and when they come back, we’re coming back,” Young told the station.

ICE did have an administrative warrant, which allows the federal agency to detain someone — but not to forcibly remove them from their home or vehicle, WTVF reported.

“There were two immigration officials sort of bullying a family inside of their own vehicle, telling them that they had an administrative warrant, which isn’t the same thing as a judicial warrant, and trying to harass them and fear them into coming out,” Daniel Ayoadeyoon, a local lawyer on the scene, told the station.

“They were saying, ‘If you don’t come out, we’re going to arrest you, we’re going to arrest your 12-year-old son,’ and that’s just not legal, it’s not the right law.”

ICE said in its statement that it “continues to focus its enforcement efforts on criminal offenders as nearly 90 percent of persons arrested for violation of federal immigration law during the past year also had either a prior criminal conviction or a pending criminal charge.”

“ICE does not conduct any type of random or indiscriminate enforcement,” the statement said.