An Illinois man said his US citizen family – including his one-year-old daughter – were pepper-sprayed in their car by federal immigration agents during a shopping trip in a Chicago suburb.
Video of the encounter outside a Sam’s Club in Cicero shows Rafael Veraza clutching at his face after he was allegedly sprayed through his open window by a cloudy substance fired by a masked agent from a pick-up truck traveling in the opposite direction.
Veraza, 25, told reporters his wife told him to stop their car because she, their daughter, and sister were also hit. The images show the aftermath of the episode with the girl in distress in her mother’s arms with her eyes streaming.
“My daughter was trying to open her eyes. She was struggling to breathe,” Veraza told reporters at a press conference Sunday, a day after an operation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the store.
The homeland security department (DHS), in a statement to the Associated Press, denied the incident had taken place. “There was no crowd control or pepper spray deployed in a Sam’s Club parking lot,” assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said.
A post to the department’s account on X said: “Rioters began throwing objects at agents and blocking the road”.
But Veraza and community activists at the press conference protesting heavy-handed tactics in Chicago by ICE personnel rejected the claim.
“We’re not protestors. We were not even attacking them,” Veraza said, adding that he decided to abandon the shopping trip and drive away when he saw a helicopter hovering overhead and heard honking car horns as well as sirens, suggesting to him that an ICE operation was under way.
Local pastor Matt DeMateo said he helped the family after they were sprayed – and recorded video of Veraza struggling to open his eyes and of his daughter, Arianna, crying while her mother tried to comfort her.
“A family – and I shouldn’t have to say this, but guess what? All US citizens attacked while shopping,” he said. “We need a better way.”
ICE has employed increasingly aggressive tactics in Chicago in recent weeks to support an immigration crackdown that president Donald Trump dubbed Operation Midway Blitz. Hundreds of people, ranging from undocumented immigrants to people protesting the violence, have been arrested.
Last week, ICE agents forcibly detained a worker at the Rayito de Sol daycare center in the city’s North Side neighborhood after pursuing her into the facility. Videos taken by bystanders show agents dragging the woman out of the daycare and appearing to slam her face against the glass doors.
In other incidents, ICE agents have targeted rideshare drivers at the city’s O’Hare international airport, released pepper spray in a neighborhood preparing for a Halloween parade and snatched workers for a landscaping company.
Despite Trump’s election claims that he was seeking to deport only “the worst of the worst”, focusing on criminals, the majority of thousands of people detained by ICE since his second presidency began in January have no criminal record or active proceedings against them.
DHS has portrayed media coverage and criticism of ICE operations as “hateful rhetoric” and a demonization of immigration law enforcement personnel it says have faced an 8,000% rise in death threats.
Courts have blocked Trump from deploying national guard troops to Illinois, rulings his administration are appealing to the US supreme court.
It is also appealing a restraining order on ICE activities issued by Chicago US district court judge Sara Ellis that limits agents’ use of force. Ellis last week reprimanded Gregory Bovino, the Trump ally and Border Patrol chief who has led the Operation Midway crackdown, for lying about an incident in which he was caught on video throwing a gas canister at protesters without warning.
On Monday, CBS News reported that the Trump administration had made plans for Bovino and an undisclosed number of his officers to leave Chicago this week.
Associated Press contributed reporting
