Three US senators called for an overhaul of the system federal agents’ use of tear gas and pepper spray, citing a ProPublica investigation which revealed that at least 79 children screamed, coughed or were injured by these chemicals during President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Lawmakers said the findings showed more restrictions were needed to avoid harming bystanders — including children — with chemical munitions. These weapons were designed to combat rioters and soldiers, and their compounds are toxic, especially to children, who breathe faster than adults relative to their weight.
“These reports clearly show that we need federal legislation to curb the excessive and abusive use of tear gas and chemical agents,” Sen. Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, said in a statement. “We cannot allow another child to be tear gassed by federal law enforcement. »
ProPublica found that the Department of Homeland Security’s policies regarding the use of these weapons are less restrictive than those of some local police departments, many of which have been forced to adopt stricter policies as a result of lawsuits or local legislation. There is no uniform standard governing how and when law enforcement agencies can use these weapons.
DHS should update its policies based on best practices from local police departments, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, told ProPublica. In Minneapolis, for example, police officers can only deploy chemical munitions if the police chief authorizes it.
“This type of use of force should require approval from a person in a position of authority” and an assessment of “potential collateral damage to children,” Blumenthal said.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat, echoed that sentiment. “We need a complete overhaul of ICE and the Border Patrol to ensure they follow the same rules and safeguards that apply to police departments across the country,” she said in a written statement.
Many of the injured children were at home when tear gas rolled in from the streets where federal agents had deployed the chemical agent against crowds of protesters. Other children were sitting in their parents’ car when officers fired pepper spray through the driver’s side windows.
There is virtually no research into the potential long-term effects on children, but the chemicals are undeniably dangerous. A mother near Chicago told ProPublica that she has repeatedly taken her 7-year-old daughter to urgent care because of her coughing and wheezing since tear gas leaked into their home last fall.
Referring to our reporting, three Democrats from The House Committee on Homeland Security also sent a letter to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin. requesting the department’s training and policies regarding the use of chemical munitions when children are nearby. The letter accused the department of “unnecessarily and grossly” harming children, and requested details on whether DHS had studied the “toxic effects of weapons on children.” The committee’s ranking member, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., signed the letter, as did ranking members of two subcommittees, Rep. J. Luis Correa of California and Rep. Shri Thanedar of Michigan.
Blumenthal sent a separate letter to Mullin requesting disciplinary records of officers who used chemical munitions in the presence of children. Video leaked in a lawsuit shows federal agents near Chicago throwing tear gas canisters at protesters. without apparent provocation before an officer said, “Fuck yeah,” and shouted, “Woo!” It happened just a few blocks from where the 7-year-old lives. (It is unclear whether the officers were disciplined.)
“Video evidence demonstrates that chemical agents were used indiscriminately, even in the presence of children,” wrote Blumenthal, who serves on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and is the ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
The scale of the officers’ actions has led some historians to compare current events with the use of tear gas by Southern law enforcement during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. ProPublica interviewed civil rights activist Charles Mauldin, who was 17 when police tear gassed him, along with hundreds of other people protesting for voting rights in Selma, Alabama.
“It’s horrible to see people like ICE treating people like we were treated 61 years ago,” Mauldin told ProPublica.
A DHS spokesperson called Mauldin’s comparison “disgusting,” adding in a statement that “this type of garbage has led to our law enforcement officers experiencing coordinated campaigns of violence against them.”
The spokesperson did not respond to ProPublica’s requests for interviews with Mullin; Todd Lyons, the outgoing director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement; or David Venturella, the acting director of ICE.
“DHS does NOT target children,” the spokesperson wrote, before blaming parents for placing their children in risky situations. “It is reckless, illegal and extremely irresponsible for parents to intervene in law enforcement activities, especially when accompanied by children.”
ProPublica’s investigation found that some of the hardest-hit children were innocent bystanders. In Portland, Oregon, federal agents regularly fired tear gas at protesters gathered outside an ICE processing center. For months, starting last summer, the chemicals seeped into an apartment complex across the street, past the boarded windows and towels that tenants put under their doors in a vain attempt to protect themselves. A 12-year-old child developed hives and “chronic respiratory problems“, according to her mother’s legal statement. Two girls, aged 7 and 9, hid in a fort they built in their father’s closet. Another parent said she taught her 13-year-old son to wear a gas mask inside.
Their situation was so extreme that the roughest search ProPublica found was a 2018 survey of Palestinian families in the West Bank, where children have complained of rashes and chronic tonsillitis after repeated exposure to tear gas deployed by Israeli security forces.
ProPublica contacted more than two dozen federal lawmakers to request a response to our findings. None of the Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson; Senator Rand Paul, Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee; and Rep. Andrew Garbarino, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, responded to requests for comment.
Many Democrats who responded condemned DHS for its agents’ behavior and pointed to failed past efforts, such as holding hearings and sending dozens of oversight letters, to hold the department accountable for its actions.
ProPublica previously reported at a Democratic-led forum in March highlighting children who have been harmed during immigration enforcement operations, including citizens who appear to have been wrongly detained. In mid-May, Rep. Delia Ramirez of Illinois held a parallel hearing in which she cited ProPublica’s findings on children injured by tear gas and pepper spray.
Rep. Glenn Ivey, a Maryland Democrat who attended the hearing, said in an interview that he had pushed for his fellow lawmakers to take back the party. George Floyd Justice and Policing Actwhich would resolve many of the issues raised by our investigation.
Various experts told ProPublica that federal legislation could help ensure that law enforcement agencies across the country adopt additional restrictions on these weapons, particularly when children are in danger.
Last month, for example, Sen. Tina Smith, a Minnesota Democrat, introduced a bill that prohibits the excessive use of forceincluding chemical munitions, in the presence of children. It has 17 co-sponsors, no Republicans, and has not been put to a vote.
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Blumenthal also called on his fellow lawmakers to support an invoice it would explicitly give the public the right to sue federal law enforcement officers for violations of civil and constitutional rights.
The Trump administration previously said that any new restrictions hinder the ability of immigration officers to carry out their work.
On Monday afternoon, federal agents fired pepper spray outside an immigration detention center in Newark, hitting Sen. Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat, according to the USA Today Network. Kim had visited the facility to support inmates who had gone on a hunger strike to protest conditions inside. He told reporters that he was pepper-sprayed after trying to defuse tensions between immigration officials and protesters, and that his throat was still burning later that evening. It is unknown whether any children were affected by chemical munitions.
DHS said agents responded to protesters who were blocking law enforcement from leaving ICE facilities.
“No individual was directly hit by pepper ball projectiles,” DHS wrote in an article on. “Our law enforcement followed their training and used the minimum force necessary to protect themselves, the public, and protect federal property.”
In response to ProPublica’s questions about lawmakers’ calls for reform, a DHS spokesperson said in a written statement that agents are trained to use “the minimum force necessary to resolve dangerous situations.”
“DHS is authorized to do what is appropriate and necessary in each situation to deescalate violence against our agents in the most appropriate manner possible,” the statement said.
In his letter sent last week, Blumenthal gave the agency a June 1 deadline to respond to his questions and records requests.