US Man, One-Year-Old Daughter Pepper Sprayed, Federal Agents Deny Charge

US immigration officers allegedly pepper-sprayed a one-year-old girl sitting inside a car in Illinois during a federal enforcement operation over the weekend, according to multiple reports in the local media.

The incident took place on Saturday morning in Cicero, a suburb outside Chicago's Little Village neighborhood, during Operation Midway Blitz.

The US Border Patrol agents were carrying out a large-scale immigration enforcement operation when a man, Rafael Veraza, and his one-year-old daughter, Arianna, were pepper-sprayed by federal agents in the parking lot of a Sam's Club store, according to ABC7 Chicago.

The video of the incident is viral on social media. It purportedly shows the agents approaching their car and using pepper spray on 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 pic.twitter.com/hV8YBI3o8z

— Gregory Royal Pratt (@royalpratt) November 9, 2025

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

Veraza has been asthmatic since childhood, and he couldn't breathe when the pepper spray hit him, he added.

"I'm asthmatic. I've had asthma since I was a little kid," Veraza said. "So the moment that it hit me, I couldn't breathe." He also said that his baby girl, sitting in the back seat, was trying to open her eyes but couldn't, and she was crying and struggling to breathe.

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

This came days before a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction restricting immigration enforcement agents' use of force. Ohio's Assistant Secretary Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Tricia McLaughlin, has denied the claim.

On X, DHS said, "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."

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

The agents were shot at by a man in a black Jeep Wrangler, and later pelted with bricks and paint cans from rooftops, damaging several vehicles, it added.

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

According to the National Lawyers Guild's Chicago, at least nine protesters were taken into federal custody during the actions in Little Village and Cicero, reported local media.

The ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), following the Trump administration's tough stance on illegal immigration, have been making attempts to locate and arrest undocumented immigrants and others suspected of related violations in the Chicago area.