{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.duckworth.senate.gov/news/press-releases/duckworth-durbin-illinois-democrats-release-fact-sheet-debunking-the-dhs-misinformation-campaign", "Duckworth, Durbin, Illinois Democrats Release Fact Sheet Debunking the DHS Misinformation Campaign", "2025-11-18", "2025", "2025-11", "Democrat", "Senate", "IL", "Tammy Duckworth", "D000622", "www.duckworth.senate.gov", "duckworth", "https://www.duckworth.senate.gov/news/press-releases", "scraper", "[WASHINGTON D.C.] \u2013 U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) joined U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) and their Illinois House Democratic colleagues in releasing a comprehensive fact check of the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s (DHS) misinformation campaign regarding its dangerous immigration enforcement actions.\n\n\u201cThe Trump Administration has continued to spin lies\u2014about our city, the people they\u2019re targeting and their excessive use of force against Illinoisans,\u201d said Duckworth. Trump\u2019s agents have deployed tear gas outside elementary schools, shot a priest in the head with pepper balls, violently attacked peaceful protestors and brandished weapons at innocent bystanders. They\u2019ve detained a preschool teacher at a daycare, hardworking people with work permits and even scores of American citizens\u2014and then put out misleading or outright false public statements to try and justify their unlawful actions. We will continue to push back against this misinformation, and I encourage Illinoisans to continue recording everything they see to shed light on the truth and help us hold this Administration accountable.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe Trump Administration continues to peddle outright lies since its unprovoked, unnecessary, and unhelpful enforcement activity in Illinois. The photos and videos out of Illinois are horrific, showing unspeakable acts committed by the United States government against its own civilians including teargassing, pepper spraying, racial profiling, excessive force, and physical violence. Neighbors are looking out for neighbors\u2014but it shouldn\u2019t have to be this way. We will continue to document and share the reality of what\u2019s actually happening in Chicago and communities impacted by this anti-immigrant agenda\u2014and hold the Trump Administration accountable for these atrocities,\u201d said Durbin.\n\nIn addition to Duckworth and Durbin, the fact check below is issued by U.S. Representatives Jonathan Jackson (D-IL-01), Robin Kelly (D-IL-02), Delia Ramirez (D-IL-03), Jes\u00fas G. \u201cChuy\u201d Garc\u00eda (D-IL-04), Mike Quigley (D-IL-05), Sean Casten (D-IL-06), Danny Davis (D-IL-07), Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL-08), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL-09), Brad Schneider (D-IL-10), Bill Foster (D-IL-11), Nikki Budzinski (D-IL-13), Lauren Underwood (D-IL-14) and Eric Sorensen (D-IL-17).\n\nA copy of the fact sheet is available below and on Senator Duckworth\u2019s website.\n\nFACT CHECK: DEBUNKING THE DHS MISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN\n\nThe Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has repeatedly spread misinformation about events in Illinois and its so-called \u201cOperation Midway Blitz,\u201d only to be contradicted by eyewitness accounts, video evidence, and local law enforcement. Despite the evidence debunking these claims, DHS misinformation is being used by President Trump to support an unlawful and unconstitutional troop deployment to Illinois and to mislabel peaceful protestors, journalists, and elected officials as \u201cAntifa.\u201d This misinformation and the reckless, dangerous, and cruel actions of federal agents in Illinois should not be used to support the Trump Administration\u2019s unlawful attacks on our democracy and constitutional rights.\n\nClaim: Violent riotersare assaulting federal law enforcement.\n\nReality: Federal agents have engaged in excessive force against overwhelmingly peaceful protestors, regularly deployingtear gas, flash bang grenades, and other weapons against protesters and journalists\u2014and even members of the clergy\u2014who are engaged in peaceful and lawful activity.\n\nIn Illinois alone, federal officials have:\n\nArrested an elected official merely for asking if agents had a warrant.\n\nThreatened, physically assaulted, injured and subjected to arrest several members of the press, including by firing a pepper ball at the car of a journalist driving by the Broadview facility, causing chemical agents to enter her car.\n\nThreatened local police, telling them that there will be \u201ca s*** show\u201d during protests in Broadview, Illinois, in retaliation for local officials calling on ICE officials to \u201cstop making war on our community.\u201d\n\nDetained and pushed to the ground a 70-year-old Air Force veteran for handing his cell phone to a protestor.\n\nResponded to a pastor\u2019s prayer by firing pepper balls directly into his face.\n\nRegularly deployed tear gas on peaceful protestors in neighborhoods around Chicago.\n\nClaim: DHS is trying its best to coordinatewith local officials in Illinois, and local police refuseto cooperate.\n\nReality: DHS officials refuse to share information with local officials, and federal government actions have endangered first responders.\n\nIn early October, DHS Secretary Noem arrived in Broadview with an entourage of cameras and a production crew for a photo op\u2014and failed to coordinate a meeting with the Broadview mayor, instead appearing unannounced at the Village Hall when the mayor was unable to meet. Meanwhile, snipers, an armored vehicle, and militarized federal agents with assault rifles responded to protests outside the Broadview ICE facility.\n\nDemonstrating the lack of coordination, federal officials have even exposed local police to tear gas.\n\nAccording to the sworn declaration of the Broadview police chief who witnessed this conduct daily: \u201cThe use of chemical agents by federal agents at the ICE facility in Broadview has often been arbitrary and indiscriminate. At times it is used when the crowd is as small as ten people. The deployment of chemical agents is dangerous to the health of both demonstrators and first responders on the scene. In addition, when ICE agents deploy chemical agents, it causes the crowd of protesters to disperse, sometimes running into the road, which is dangerous both for them and for motorists. Broadview police officers have had to attempt to position themselves in a way that directs the crowd to disperse in a safe manner. Over the course of my career in law enforcement, the way in which federal agents have indiscriminately used chemical agents in Broadview is unlike anything I have seen before.\u201d\n\nClaim: DHS law enforcement officers are not engagedin racial profiling.\n\nReality: DHS officials are arresting individuals on the basis of race or ethnicity. In fact, when asked, Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino admittedthat race and ethnicity play a significant role in arrests, stating that when considering arrest factors, an agent examines \u201cobviously, the particular characteristics of an individual, how they look.\u201d\n\nIn Illinois, a judge found that ICE illegally arrested nearly two dozen people, conducting warrantless arrests without probable cause to believe someone is in the United States unlawfully and is a flight risk.\n\nAs the judge noted, probable cause is particularly critical given that \u201c[c]itizens and non-citizens with legal status who share commonalities (such as race/ethnicity, a preference for speaking Spanish, or employment in certain occupations or locations) with\u2014or mere physical proximity to\u2014Latino foreign nationals may now find themselves more likely to be subjected to ICE questioning for sometimes lengthy periods of detention, and, potentially, warrantless arrests during immigration enforcement operations.\u201d\n\nThe decision followed the Supreme Court granting a stay in a 9th Circuit case in September that essentially allows the federal government to, as Justice Sotomayor noted in dissent, \u201cseize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job.\u201d\n\nIn one incident in Chicago, masked, armed agents dressed in camouflage, arrested a family of four, including two young children aged three and eight, in Millenium Park in Chicago. The mother noted that \u201c[t]here were a lot more people there, but the agents came directly to us because of how we look,\u201d going on to say \u201c[i]t\u2019s not fair.\u201d\n\nClaim: DHS law enforcement officers are not targetingU.S. citizens.\n\nReality: Immigrants and U.S. citizens alike have been targeted by masked, unidentified agents conducting violent raids, arrests, and arbitrary detentions.\n\nFederal immigration agents in Waukegan detained a U.S. citizen, but the local mayor intervened on her behalf. Federal agents claimed that she was impeding a federal law enforcement operation, but she believes she was targeted due to having a Mexican flag on her car.\n\nFederal agents detained a U.S. citizen of Latino descent working in the service industry and held her for an hour, even after she presented her passport. The agents stated that she didn\u2019t \u201clook like\u201d a person with her last name and accused her of lying.\n\nFederal agents detained several U.S. citizens, including Jacqueline Lopez and Elianne Bahena, staffers for Alderman Michael Rodriguez, during a militarized raid in the Little Village neighborhood in Chicago. In addition to serving as Alderman Rodriguez\u2019s chief of staff, Bahena serves as an elected 10th District Police Commissioner.\n\nClaim: DHS is arresting the \u201cworst of the worst.\u201d\n\nReality: Federal agents are mostly detaining people who have committed no crimes in order to meet an arbitrary 3,000-person daily arrest quota.\n\nICE and other federal agents conducting immigration enforcement actions are sweeping up hardworking, longstanding members of our communities in disorganized, dangerous, and, raids and arrests\u2014including an arrest that turned deadly.\n\nIn fact, this Administration is undermining investigations into the \u201cworst of the worst\u201d to arrest immigrants with no criminal convictions. The Trump Administration has pulled federal law enforcement officials away from investigating serious threats to our communities, including child sex exploitation, counterterrorism, and national security threats, to focus on its disastrous mass deportation campaign.\n\nClaim: Illinois is like a war zone.\n\nReality: Illinois is a welcoming, vibrant state that has long thrived thanks to the contributions of immigrants to our communities and our economy.\n\nIllinois does not need National Guard troops or militarized federal agents targeting our friends and neighbors. One analysis found that one video that the White House posted supposedly showing Chicago in \u201cchaos\u201d was littered with outdated footage of drug busts, arrests, and deportation raids in other states, including Florida, Texas, South Carolina and Nebraska.\n\n-30-\n\nNext Article Previous Article", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:52:45Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.duckworth.senate.gov/news/press-releases/duckworth-durbin-illinois-democrats-release-fact-sheet-debunking-the-dhs-misinformation-campaign"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.3169650230556726, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}