https:\/\/reason.com\/2025\/11\/12\/operation-midway-blitz-agents-pepper-sprayed-a-chicago-family-on-a-grocery-run<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“Less than two days after a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction to restrict immigration agents from using riot control weapons, including chemical irritants, a Chicago-area couple and their 1-year-old daughter were pepper-sprayed during their Saturday morning grocery run.<\/p>\n
On Saturday morning, the Veraza family was on its way to Sam’s Club in Cicero, a Chicago suburb near the epicenter of the federal government’s immigration enforcement campaign known as “Operation Midway Blitz.” Upon hearing a helicopter and car horns, which are often used by community members to signal immigration enforcement activity in progress, they decided to leave. That’s when a black pickup truck, captured on video by the car’s passenger, drove past their vehicle while a masked agent sprayed a chemical irritant through the car’s open driver’s side window. A cloud of spray hit the driver, Rafael Veraza, in the face, affecting him, his wife, and his 1-year-old daughter, Ariana, in the back seat. The video then cuts to Rafael and his wife trying to wash out Ariana’s eyes as she cries.<\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n
In response to questions regarding the incident, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin sent a statement to the A.P. claiming “there was no crowd control or pepper spray deployed in a Sam’s Club parking lot.””<\/p>\n
https:\/\/reason.com\/2025\/11\/12\/operation-midway-blitz-agents-pepper-sprayed-a-chicago-family-on-a-grocery-run\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1501,2108,838,221,844,26,493,25,170],"class_list":["post-20494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-chicago","tag-deport","tag-deportation","tag-donald-trump","tag-ice","tag-illegal-immigration","tag-immigrants","tag-immigration","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20494"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20495,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20494\/revisions\/20495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}