Durbin Again Condemns Trump Administration’s Extreme “Operation Midway Blitz” After ICE Agents Pepper Spray U.S. Citizen And His One-Year-Old Daughter
“President Trump is turning federal immigration officers into his own secret, masked police force. I see it every day in the city of Chicago,” Durbin said in his speech on the Senate floor
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, spoke on the Senate floor to call out the Trump Administration’s extreme and unlawful actions during the so-called “Operation Midway Blitz,” in which hundreds of residents of Illinois and immigrants without a criminal record have been detained. Today, Durbin shared the story of Rafael Veraza and his one-year-old daughter Arianna, who are both U.S. citizens, being pepper sprayed at close range by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents while they were on a shopping trip to a local Sam’s Club.
Durbin began his remarks by reiterating that “Operation Midway Blitz” is a mechanism used by the Trump Administration to sow fear in Illinois communities. Rather than going after the “worst of the worst” as the President promised, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials from ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have gone after U.S. citizens and immigrants who are legally in the United States, racially profiling people on the street and detaining them.
“For almost three months, Chicago and my home state of Illinois have been under attack by President Trump since he launched what he calls ‘Operation Midway Blitz.’ During that time, chaos and terror have reigned supreme. This operation isn’t just targeting the ‘worst of the worst’…American citizens, legal residents of the United States, and immigrants who have built their lives and raised their families here and pose no threat to public safety have been the actual targets,” Durbin began.
“A court forced the Administration to come clean on this. Just how many of these dangerous ‘worst of the worst’ criminals are you arresting and [detaining] in the process of ‘Operation Midway Blitz?’ The Administration finally released their numbers—[of] 600 people . . . arrested [and currently detained] under ‘Operation Midway Blitz’… sixteen people out of the 600 actually had a criminal history that poses a high risk to public safety. [That’s less than] three percent,” Durbin said. DHS provided the list of 600 arrestees as a part of litigation challenging potentially thousands of unlawful arrests.
Durbin denounced the extreme tactics used by federal agents, including ripping a U.S. citizen from her car after federal agents hit her vehicle, causing her to experience internal bleeding; detaining a green card holder while he was walking in Chicago and then releasing him without contacting his family, resulting in him going missing for two weeks; deploying pepper spray and disrupting a children’s Halloween parade in the Old Irving Park neighborhood of Chicago; and pulling a teacher, who had work authorization in the U.S., from her school in front of students and parents. Earlier this month, ICE agents deployed pepper spray into the car of Mr. Veraza, hitting him and his young daughter.
“Rafael Veraza and his one-year-old daughter Arianna, both citizens of the United States, were enjoying a shopping day at Sam’s Club. Who would have thought that a simple father-daughter trip to Sam’s Club would turn into a trauma that these two people will never, ever forget? But the Verazas became a target for ICE for obvious reasons. He was shopping while being Hispanic,” Durbin said.
“Mr. Veraza and his family said they were in their car when they heard a helicopter and cars honking. With the uptick in raids in the Chicago area, Mr. Veraza knew those sounds signaled that ICE agents were nearby. To keep his family safe, he decided to leave,” Durbin said. “Before this American citizen and his one-year-old daughter could drive away, a masked agent pointed a pepper spray gun through the family’s open car window and fired the weapon at close range.”
“The pepper spray hit Mr. Veraza in the face, and his daughter also breathed it in. Because of this violent, unprovoked action from ICE agents, both Arianna and Rafael were briefly hospitalized. He told reporters after the incident happened, ‘My daughter was trying to open her eyes…She was struggling to breathe,’” Durbin said.
“Does this incident seem like a federal immigration agent setting out to make America safer?” Durbin continued. “What was his crime? Shopping at a local Sam’s Club?...Pepper spraying a little girl and her father during a shopping trip is shameful and outrageous.”
Durbin concluded his remarks by emphasizing that President Trump has weaponized DHS against the people he was elected to serve.
“President Trump is turning federal immigration officers into his own secret, masked police force. I see it every day in the city of Chicago. He is violating the rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution to all of us, including the right to due process and the rule of law,” Durbin said.
Durbin concluded his remarks: “The President and his Administration’s actions are about politics, nor about public safety. It’s time for all of us in Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, to put politics aside, speak up, and condemn this growing threat to our democracy.”
In response to the Trump Administration’s surge in federal law enforcement in Chicago and continuous threats to deploy the military in the area, Durbin has taken a number of steps to push back on these unlawful actions carried out by DHS and Secretary Noem under the direction of President Trump. Durbin’s actions to push back on the Trump Administration’s so-called “Operation Midway Blitz” can be found here.
Video of Durbin’s remarks on the Senate floor is available here.
Audio of Durbin’s remarks on the Senate floor is available here.
Footage of Durbin’s remarks on the Senate floor is available here for TV Stations.
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