Students from Roosevelt High School protest during a walkout, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026, in Minneapolis. Jen Golbeck/AP
A mother in Minneapolis rushed to perform CPR on her 6-month-old baby on Wednesday night after federal immigration agents deployed a flash bang and chemical agent near her car, leading all six of her children to be taken to the hospital.
The Jackson family told local news outlets that they were coming home from their son’s basketball game when they got stuck between protesters and immigration agents, unable to drive away. That’s when, according to the family, their car began filling with a chemical irritant.
“All we heard was BOOM and every airbag deployed,” Destiny Jackson, the mother, told KARE 11 News.
She recalled screaming for her children to get out of the car and hearing them say that they couldn’t maneuver out—and couldn’t breathe. Bystanders rushed to help as Destiny said she screamed out for her youngest.
“He was just lifeless, like he had foam around his mouth,” she said. “He had tears coming out of his eyes. “I was giving him mouth-to-mouth, and I remember stopping, and I said, ‘I will give you all my breath ‘til you get yours back.’”
“Nobody wants to see their kids like that,” Jackson said, visibly holding back tears as she discussed the violence.
The whole family was taken to the hospital. Destiny called the incident “very traumatizing” in a GoFundMe post, writing that “never in a million years would I have thought something like this would happen to me and my family.”
In an X post that appears to have been taken down, DHS appeared to blame the Jackson family for their hospitalization. “It is horrific to see radical agitators bring children to their violent riots,” adding, “PLEASE STOP ENDANGERING YOUR CHILDREN.”
This isn’t the first time kids have been on the receiving end of chemical weapons used by federal immigration agents in the Trump administration’s mass deportation plans. These include incidents where children have been harmed as ICE agents targeted their parents with chemical agents. Young people have also been caught in the crosshairs at protests or nearby. Several incidents of tear gas have taken place at or near schools.
Just a week earlier in Minneapolis, and just hours after ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renée Nicole Good in her car, US Border Patrol agents descended upon Roosevelt High School, “began tackling people,” and “handcuffed two staff members and released chemical weapons on bystanders,” according to reporting from Minnesota Public Radio. The Department of Homeland Security denied that tear gas was used; the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers said in a statement that agents did use a chemical irritant.
The incident prompted Minneapolis Public Schools to cancel classes for the remainder of the week for the whole district. The school system is now allowing for remote learning through at least February 12 after a district spokesperson said they had received “multiple threats impacting several MPS schools.” The charter school where one of Good’s children attends has also switched to online learning following right-wing attacks, according to reporting from Sahan Journal.
And it’s not just kids in Minneapolis, nor is it just this month.
In July 2025, children were seen on video running away from a chemical agent that ICE set off during a raid on farmworkers in Southern California.
In August, a Portland grade school announced that it was relocating as an “emergency move” due to dangerous conditions surrounding a nearby ICE facility. “We have been impacted mostly by chemical weapons that are being used against protesters in the vicinity of our school,” the school’s interim executive director explained at the time, adding that they had routinely found “munitions” on the playground.
Multiple incidents involving alleged chemical agents and children were also reported in Chicago last fall.
On the Northwest side of the city in late October, Border Patrol agents reportedly interrupted a children’s Halloween parade, deployed chemical agents, and tackled and arrested several people, including US citizens, according to residents in the neighborhood and videos verified by ABC News.
Days later, near the Logan Square neighborhood, federal agents threw a chemical irritant onto a busy street near an elementary school, with DHS later justifying the action by claiming protesters had been impeding an activeoperation. According to reporting from ABC 7, children were playing on the monkey bars at school moments before officials threw tear gas canisters from a white SUV.
Shortly after, in November, in a Chicago suburb, video showed what appearedto be a federal agent in a truck spraying a chemical irritant into a car as it drove past. In that car was Rafael Veraza and his family, including his one-year-old daughter, who was reportedly impacted by the chemical agent.
“My daughter was trying to open her eyes,” Veraza told reporters at a press conference following the interaction. “She was struggling to breathe.”
“Us, as adults,” he said, “we can handle it. But as kids, they shouldn’t be targeting kids.”
