{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.durbin.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/durbin-again-condemns-trump-administrations-extreme-operation-midway-blitz-after-ice-agents-pepper-spray-us-citizen-and-his-one-year-old-daughter", "Durbin Again Condemns Trump Administration\u2019s Extreme \u201cOperation Midway Blitz\u201d After ICE Agents Pepper Spray U.S. Citizen And His One-Year-Old Daughter", "2025-11-20", "2025", "2025-11", "Democrat", "Senate", "IL", "Richard J. Durbin", "D000563", "www.durbin.senate.gov", "durbin", "https://www.durbin.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases", "scraper", "\u201cPresident Trump is turning federal immigration officers into his own secret, masked police force. I see it every day in the city of Chicago,\u201d Durbin said in his speech on the Senate floor\n\nWASHINGTON \u2013 U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, spoke on the Senate floor to call out the Trump Administration\u2019s extreme and unlawful actions during the so-called \u201cOperation Midway Blitz,\u201d in which hundreds of residents of Illinois and immigrants without a criminal record have been detained. Today, Durbin shared the story of Rafael Veraza and his one-year-old daughter Arianna, who are both U.S. citizens, being pepper sprayed at close range by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents while they were on a shopping trip to a local Sam\u2019s Club.\n\nDurbin began his remarks by reiterating that \u201cOperation Midway Blitz\u201d is a mechanism used by the Trump Administration to sow fear in Illinois communities. Rather than going after the \u201cworst of the worst\u201d as the President promised, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials from ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have gone after U.S. citizens and immigrants who are legally in the United States, racially profiling people on the street and detaining them.\n\n\u201cFor almost three months, Chicago and my home state of Illinois have been under attack by President Trump since he launched what he calls \u2018Operation Midway Blitz.\u2019 During that time, chaos and terror have reigned supreme. This operation isn\u2019t just targeting the \u2018worst of the worst\u2019\u2026American citizens, legal residents of the United States, and immigrants who have built their lives and raised their families here and pose no threat to public safety have been the actual targets,\u201d Durbin began.\n\n\u201cA court forced the Administration to come clean on this. Just how many of these dangerous \u2018worst of the worst\u2019 criminals are you arresting and [detaining] in the process of \u2018Operation Midway Blitz?\u2019 The Administration finally released their numbers\u2014[of] 600 people . . . arrested [and currently detained] under \u2018Operation Midway Blitz\u2019\u2026 sixteen people out of the 600 actually had a criminal history that poses a high risk to public safety. [That\u2019s less than] three percent,\u201d Durbin said. DHS provided the list of 600 arrestees as a part of litigation challenging potentially thousands of unlawful arrests.\n\nDurbin denounced the extreme tactics used by federal agents, including ripping a U.S. citizen from her car after federal agents hit her vehicle, causing her to experience internal bleeding; detaining a green card holder while he was walking in Chicago and then releasing him without contacting his family, resulting in him going missing for two weeks; deploying pepper spray and disrupting a children\u2019s Halloween parade in the Old Irving Park neighborhood of Chicago; and pulling a teacher, who had work authorization in the U.S., from her school in front of students and parents. Earlier this month, ICE agents deployed pepper spray into the car of Mr. Veraza, hitting him and his young daughter.\n\n\u201cRafael Veraza and his one-year-old daughter Arianna, both citizens of the United States, were enjoying a shopping day at Sam\u2019s Club. Who would have thought that a simple father-daughter trip to Sam\u2019s Club would turn into a trauma that these two people will never, ever forget? But the Verazas became a target for ICE for obvious reasons. He was shopping while being Hispanic,\u201d Durbin said.\n\n\u201cMr. Veraza and his family said they were in their car when they heard a helicopter and cars honking. With the uptick in raids in the Chicago area, Mr. Veraza knew those sounds signaled that ICE agents were nearby. To keep his family safe, he decided to leave,\u201d Durbin said. \u201cBefore this American citizen and his one-year-old daughter could drive away, a masked agent pointed a pepper spray gun through the family\u2019s open car window and fired the weapon at close range.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe pepper spray hit Mr. Veraza in the face, and his daughter also breathed it in. Because of this violent, unprovoked action from ICE agents, both Arianna and Rafael were briefly hospitalized. He told reporters after the incident happened, \u2018My daughter was trying to open her eyes\u2026She was struggling to breathe,\u2019\u201d Durbin said.\n\n\u201cDoes this incident seem like a federal immigration agent setting out to make America safer?\u201d Durbin continued. \u201cWhat was his crime? Shopping at a local Sam\u2019s Club?...Pepper spraying a little girl and her father during a shopping trip is shameful and outrageous.\u201d\n\nDurbin concluded his remarks by emphasizing that President Trump has weaponized DHS against the people he was elected to serve.\n\n\u201cPresident Trump is turning federal immigration officers into his own secret, masked police force. I see it every day in the city of Chicago. He is violating the rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution to all of us, including the right to due process and the rule of law,\u201d Durbin said.\n\nDurbin concluded his remarks: \u201cThe President and his Administration\u2019s actions are about politics, nor about public safety. It\u2019s time for all of us in Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, to put politics aside, speak up, and condemn this growing threat to our democracy.\u201d\n\nIn response to the Trump Administration\u2019s surge in federal law enforcement in Chicago and continuous threats to deploy the military in the area, Durbin has taken a number of steps to push back on these unlawful actions carried out by DHS and Secretary Noem under the direction of President Trump. Durbin\u2019s actions to push back on the Trump Administration\u2019s so-called \u201cOperation Midway Blitz\u201d can be found here.\n\nVideo of Durbin\u2019s remarks on the Senate floor is available here.\n\nAudio of Durbin\u2019s remarks on the Senate floor is available here.\n\nFootage of Durbin\u2019s remarks on the Senate floor is available here for TV Stations.\n\n-30-", 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.durbin.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/durbin-again-condemns-trump-administrations-extreme-operation-midway-blitz-after-ice-agents-pepper-spray-us-citizen-and-his-one-year-old-daughter"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.473824191838503, "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"}