Controversy Erupts After US Border Patrol Allegedly Pepper Sprays One-Year-Old During Immigration Operation

A video circulating online shows a young girl crying, allegedly due to exposure to pepper spray during a federal operation.

According to multiple local media reports, US immigration officials allegedly used pepper spray on a one-year-old girl who was inside a vehicle in Illinois during a federal enforcement operation that occurred over the weekend.

The event took place Saturday morning in Cicero, a suburban area outside Chicago's Little Village neighborhood, as part of what was called Operation Midway Blitz.

ABC7 Chicago reported that during a large-scale immigration enforcement operation, US Border Patrol agents allegedly pepper-sprayed Rafael Veraza and his one-year-old daughter Arianna while they were in the parking lot of a Sam's Club store.

A viral social media video purportedly captures federal agents approaching their vehicle and deploying pepper spray toward them.

"Here's video of federal agents doing a drive by pepper spraying that hit a father and his one-year old on Saturday when the Feds were hitting Little Village and Cicero," stated a social media post sharing the footage.

Recounting the incident, Veraza explained, "He started spraying from the front of the car towards the back. Basically, I got sprayed all over my face."

Veraza, who has suffered from asthma since childhood, said he experienced difficulty breathing when the pepper spray made contact with him.

"I'm asthmatic. I've had asthma since I was a little kid," Veraza stated. "So the moment that it hit me, I couldn't breathe." He further described how his infant daughter in the back seat was attempting to open her eyes but couldn't, crying and struggling to breathe.

"My daughter was trying to open her eyes. She was struggling to breathe," he added.

This incident occurred just days before a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction limiting immigration enforcement agents' use of force. Tricia McLaughlin, Ohio's Assistant Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has denied the allegations.

On social platform X, DHS stated, "No. There was no crowd control or pepper spray deployed in a Sam's Club parking lot. Though over the weekend in Chicago, law enforcement was shot at, bricks were thrown at them, they were rammed with vehicles and other attacks."

In an official statement, DHS claimed, "Border Patrol was accosted by a hostile crowd that boxed them into a street and alleyway at around 9:30 am on Saturday morning."

According to the statement, agents were fired upon by an individual in a black Jeep Wrangler, and later had bricks and paint cans thrown at them from rooftops, resulting in damage to several vehicles.

"Later, agents faced multiple vehicle ramming attempts, including near Cermak and California and outside an FBI facility," the DHS statement continued.

Local media reported that according to the National Lawyers Guild's Chicago chapter, at least nine protesters were taken into federal custody during operations in Little Village and Cicero.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), following the Trump administration's stringent policies on illegal immigration, have been conducting operations to locate and apprehend undocumented immigrants and others suspected of related violations throughout the Chicago area.