Kids Feel Tear Gas Rolling Through Neighborhoods

A new investigation by ProPublica says federal immigration officers have harmed dozens of children with tear gas and pepper spray during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. The report documents 79 children harmed since 2025, describes how courts

On a day when crowds gathered in protest, Broadview, Illinois was quiet—until it wasn’t.

Derrick Nash and his family live a block and a half east of an ICE facility. Even from that distance, the effects of tear gas reached inside their home. Each time officers tear-gassed protesters nearby, the children—ages 6 to 17—coughed and their throats burned. The eldest, a high school senior with asthma, would retreat to his second-floor bedroom. One evening, his face turned red as he coughed uncontrollably, then sucked on his inhaler without relief.

“He was wigging out, saying, ‘I can’t breathe,’” Nash recalled. The family considered calling an ambulance, but the street was closed.

DHS has defended its use of the chemicals and said it does not target children. but after reviewing news accounts. lawsuits and officer-worn body camera footage—and verifying incidents by interviewing more than 40 victims or witnesses—ProPublica identified more than six dozen instances in which children had been harmed by tear gas and pepper spray during Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Five facts from the reporting show how quickly a crowd-control tactic becomes a childhood hazard, and how legal and policy guardrails have not been enough to keep the chemicals from drifting into the spaces where children actually live and move.

Dozens of children have been harmed by tear gas deployed by immigration agents.

So-called less lethal weapons like tear gas and pepper spray were developed to inflict severe pain and temporarily disable adult combatants and rioters. But ProPublica says its tally found 79 children across the country who were harmed by these chemicals after they were deployed by federal immigration officers since 2025. The report says its count is nearly four times the number cited in a recent congressional report. while also warning it is likely a vast undercount.

DHS has argued that the harm is driven by “agitators” in the crowds and by parents who put their children in harm’s way. ProPublica’s reporting places many of the children it identified in cars, at home, or walking to school when they came into contact with airborne weapons.

What the chemicals do to children is not a theoretical debate.

There is no one such thing as “tear gas.” It is a catch-all term for various chemical irritants that exist as a fine powder. Once triggered, they fire nerve endings in a way that makes it feel as if people are on fire. The chemicals can sear lungs and throat. inflame airways until breathing feels like it is being done through a straw. and they can bring on snot and tears. The effects can include vomiting, rashes and coughs that last for weeks.

Pepper spray is made from compounds found in hot peppers and causes similar effects.

Children are especially vulnerable. the reporting says. because they breathe more rapidly and can pull in more contaminated air than adults relative to their body weight. Their airways are also narrower. and they are closer to the ground. where tear gas tends to pool after it is deployed. ProPublica adds that the Trump administration’s use of tear gas has been so extraordinary that no one yet knows what long-term harm may result for children who have come into contact with the chemicals—some of them multiple times.

Courts have sometimes found the force excessive, but limits have been narrow—and unstable.

In November 2025. a federal judge in Illinois ruled that ICE and CBP officers had deployed these chemicals “without justification. often without warning” against people who didn’t pose a physical threat. The judge said this constituted an illegal use of excessive force and ordered the agencies to stop.

But the injunction covered only the areas mentioned in the complaint. The report says agents were unfettered to continue using the weapons elsewhere.

In Portland, Oregon, a judge issued a temporary restraining order after federal agents responded to a Jan. 31 rally by firing multiple less-lethals into the crowd. That mix included Triple Chaser grenades that each separated into three tear gas canisters. dozens of pepper ball projectiles filled with chemical munitions. and “rubber ball grenades” that released stinging pellets. bright lights. and loud sounds.

The temporary restraining order forbade federal agents from using chemical munitions unless targeted at someone who posed “an imminent threat of physical harm.”

Still, the reporting states that appellate courts have subsequently vacated the Illinois judge’s ruling and multiple rulings from judges in Portland seeking to enjoin the use of these weapons.

Once the canisters are out, containment isn’t something families can count on.

The administration has defended agents’ training and said ICE officers are taught to use “the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve dangerous situations.” But ProPublica reports that tear gas canisters launched into a crowd can bounce and roll unpredictably. The chemicals can also travel through the air—sometimes for blocks.

In Minneapolis, the report says tear gas traveled at least a quarter mile before seeping into a McDonald’s.

That unpredictability helps explain why ProPublica’s investigation repeatedly places children far from the center of any confrontation: the chemicals don’t always stay where adults stand.

No national standard for use of tear gas exists.

Law enforcement policies governing tear gas and pepper spray differ widely by location, and there is no federal standard. The DHS policy on force says officers must use tactics that “minimize the risk of unintended injury” and should be guided by “respect for human life.” The CBP policy says officers “should not use” pepper spray or “less-lethal” chemical munitions against “small children.” ICE’s policy says “the presence of other officers. subjects. or bystanders” are a factor in determining whether an officer’s use of force is reasonable.

ProPublica compares that patchwork with how two cities handled the chemicals after experiencing Trump’s immigration crackdown firsthand. In Portland, police officers who consider using tear gas must take into account their proximity to homes. In Minneapolis. officers are forbidden from using chemical munitions for crowd control unless authorized by the police chief—even when officers fear they will be physically harmed.

Experts told ProPublica that requiring all law enforcement agencies to adopt uniform policies and training methods would help. They also acknowledged it would likely require Congress to pass a bill mandating that federal law enforcement entities adopt stricter practices and incentivize local police departments to do the same.

Bills aimed at strengthening use-of-force training on this wide scale. and legislation targeting DHS and its use of these weapons. have thus far failed to even make it to a vote in Congress. Following ProPublica’s investigation, U.S. lawmakers began demanding reforms to immigration officers’ use of these weapons.

For families like Nash’s, the debate is no longer academic. The decision about chemical munitions happens in a policy world of injunctions, vacated rulings, and force standards. But when tear gas drifts into homes—when children cough. when throats burn. when asthma attacks don’t wait for legal clarity—its consequences land in bedrooms and on kitchen floors.

tear gas pepper spray ICE CBP DHS immigration crackdown ProPublica children harmed use of force Portland Minneapolis Broadview Illinois court ruling injunction