‘Misuse’ of crowd control weapons on ICE protesters led to blindings and traumatic brain injuries, report finds

Smoke fills the air as protesters face off with California Highway Patrol officers in Los Angeles, California on 8 June 2025. Photograph: Jill Connelly/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock View image in fullscreen Smoke fills the air as protesters face off with California Highway Patrol officers in Los Angeles, California on 8 June 2025. Photograph: Jill Connelly/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock ‘Misuse’ of crowd control weapons on ICE protesters led to blindings and traumatic brain injuries, report finds Doctors and human rights experts documented hundreds of incidents from June 2025 through May 2026 and estimate true number is ‘far greater’ It’s been a brutal tactic deployed by local and federal law enforcement officials time and again over the past year: using teargas, rubber bullets and pepper spray to control protests outside ICE detention centers or during enforcement operations. Now, a new report lays bare the scale of the use of these crowd control weapons during anti-immigration demonstrations across the US, including hundreds of incidents that resulted in lasting and traumatic injuries. The report and an interactive map was created by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley (HRC) and released this week. Doctors and human rights experts with PHR and HRC documented 412 verified incidents of the “misuse” of these crowd control weapons, also known as “less-lethal weapons”, from June 2025 through May 2026. “This is a concerning story,” said Dr Rohini Haar, the lead author of the report and a PHR medical expert, in an interview with the Guardian. The report documented 203 injuries stemming from the alleged misuse of the crowd control weapons. Some of the injuries included blindings , traumatic brain injuries, lacerations, fractures and contusions. Los Angeles man blinded by officer’s projectile at anti-ICE protest, claim says Read more The researchers struggled to confirm the full scale of the injuries, because “visual investigative techniques cannot adequately assess invisible injuries, such as chemical injury or chronic pain or hearing loss”. “The true number of injuries is likely far greater,” the report adds. Such tactics were on display earlier this summer, when dozens of protesters gathered outside the Delaney Hall immigration detention center in Newark, New Jersey, in solidarity with detained immigrants on hunger strike . As protests became more and more heated, a line of masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials stood outside to guard the detention center. During a scuffle, ICE officials pepper sprayed Andy Kim, a New Jersey senator, making national news and helping set off one of the country’s flashpoints in demonstrations against the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations. View image in fullscreen State police officers stand behind shields as tear gas fills the area outside the Delaney Hall detention center during a protest in Newark, New Jersey.