Politics

An Illinois man said his US citizen family – including his one-year-old daughter – were pepper-sprayed in their car by federal immigration agents during a shopping trip in a Chicago suburb.

Video of the encounter outside a Sam’s Club in Cicero shows Rafael Veraza clutching at his face after he was allegedly sprayed through his open window by a cloudy substance fired by a masked agent from a pick-up truck traveling in the opposite direction.

Veraza, 25, told reporters his wife told him to stop their car because she, their daughter, and sister were also hit. The images show the aftermath of the episode with the girl in distress in her mother’s arms with her eyes streaming.

“My daughter was trying to open her eyes. She was struggling to breathe,” Veraza told reporters at a press conference Sunday, a day after an operation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the store.