What You Need to Know About How Tear Gas Harms Kids

In city after city, the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has been met by protests and rallies from members of the local community opposed to the White House’s deportation policies. Federal agents from the Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have repeatedly attempted to break up and drive back these crowds through the use of airborne irritants like tear gas and pepper spray, which can cause an array of immediate reactions — from eye pain to shortness of breath to nausea and vomiting — intended to temporarily disable their targets.

DHS has defended its use of these weapons on crowds and said that it “does NOT target children,” but after reviewing news accounts, lawsuits and officer-worn body camera footage, as well as verifying incidents by interviewing more than 40 victims or witnesses, ProPublica recently identified more than six dozen instances in which children had been harmed by tear gas and pepper spray.

Here are five things you should know about how these airborne weapons have been used during Trump’s immigration crackdown and how their use has particularly harmed children.

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 debilitate adult combatants and rioters, but ProPublica identified 79 children across the country since 2025 who have been harmed by these chemicals after they were deployed by federal immigration officers. Our tally is nearly four times the number cited in a recent congressional report, yet it is likely still a vast undercount.

The Department of Homeland Security has defended its agents’ use of the chemicals and claimed the blame lies with “agitators” in the crowds and parents who put their children in harm’s way. Many children harmed by tear gas and pepper spray were in their cars, at home or walking to school when they came into contact with the airborne weapons.

Tear gas and pepper spray are especially toxic to children.

There is no one such thing as “tear gas.” It’s a catch-all term for various chemical irritants that exist as a fine powder and trigger nerve endings to feel as if they’re on fire. The chemicals sear your lungs and throat, inflaming your airways until it feels like you’re breathing through a straw, while snot and tears stream down your face. They can cause vomiting, rashes and coughs that last for weeks. Pepper spray is made from compounds found in hot peppers and causes similar effects.

Because children breathe more rapidly and can pull in more contaminated air than adults relative to their body weight, these weapons are particularly dangerous to the young. Children are also more vulnerable because they have narrower airways and they are closer to the ground, where tear gas tends to pool after being deployed. The Trump administration’s use of tear gas has been so extraordinary that no one yet knows what long-term harm may result from children who’ve come into contact with these chemicals — some of them multiple times.

Courts have found that agents’ use of tear gas is excessive, but their power is limited.

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. This constituted an illegal use of excessive force, said the judge, ordering the agencies to stop. But her injunction covered only the areas mentioned in the complaint. Agents were unfettered to continue using the weapons elsewhere.

After federal agents in Portland, Oregon, responded to a Jan. 31 rally by firing various less-lethals into the crowd — including 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 — a judge there issued a temporary restraining order that forbade federal agents from using chemical munitions unless targeted at someone who posed “an imminent threat of physical harm.”

However, 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 deployed, these weapons are difficult to contain.

Though the Trump administration has defended agents’ training and said ICE officers are taught to use “the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve dangerous situations,” not only can tear gas canisters launched into a crowd bounce and roll unpredictably, but the toxic chemicals can travel through the air, sometimes for blocks. In Minneapolis, ProPublica found that tear gas had traveled at least a quarter mile before seeping into a McDonald’s.

Derrick Nash and his family live a block and a half east of an ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois. Even from that distance, they felt the effects inside their homes when officers tear-gassed protesters. Each time the tear gas seeped in, the kids — ages 6 to 17 — coughed, and their throats often burned. The eldest, a high school senior with asthma, would hide out in his second-floor bedroom. One evening, his face turned red as he coughed uncontrollably and 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.

No national standard for use of tear gas exists.

Law enforcement policies governing the use of tear gas and pepper spray differ widely by location, and no federal standard exists. 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’s 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 officers’ use of force is reasonable.

Compare that with tear gas policies in two cities that have experienced Trump’s immigration crackdown firsthand. In Portland, police officers who consider using tear gas must take into account their proximity to homes. Meanwhile, Minneapolis forbids officers from using chemical munitions for crowd control unless authorized by the police chief — even when officers fear they will be physically harmed.

Requiring all law enforcement agencies to adopt uniform policies and training methods would go a long way, experts told ProPublica. At the same time, they acknowledge that this 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 that seek to strengthen use-of-force training on such a wide scale and legislation that targets 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 have begun demanding reforms to immigration officers’ use of these weapons.