Public Health Experts Sound Alarm as Feds Keep Deploying Tear Gas Near Kids |
Did you know that Truthout is a nonprofit and independently funded by readers like you? If you value what we do, please support our work with a donation.
This story was originally published by The 19th.
From the roof of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building in Portland, Oregon, federal agents late last month watched as thousands of people marched past the processing center in protest. Families and children were among the daytime crowd, which had gathered for an event advertised as family friendly.
When some protesters reportedly crossed the facility’s property line and approached the security gate, agents began deploying tear gas and flash-bang grenades. Smoke quickly filled the air.
Video of the ensuing chaos showed a young girl — wearing a pink sweater with butterflies — in visible distress as a volunteer medic sprays water on her face. At one point the ponytailed girl said, “Owie, it burns.”
“She was confused, stunned, upset, crying,” a witness said. “It shattered me.”
Weeks earlier in Minneapolis — where federal agents have injured and killed civilians as part of a massive immigration enforcement operation — an agent threw a flash-bang that rolled under an SUV stopped in traffic. It set off smoke inside the vehicle, forcing a family with children in the passenger seats to run into a nearby home. A 6-month-old in the car stopped breathing briefly.
Immigration Agents Tear Gas Minneapolis Family’s Car With 6 Kids Inside
“I stopped and I looked at my baby and I was just like, ‘Wake up, you have to,’” the mother told CNN. She administered CPR before taking her infant to the hospital.
As the Trump administration expands militarized operations ensnaring U.S. citizens, legal immigrants and undocumented immigrants with no criminal record, agents’ use of tear gas and other chemical irritants as crowd control measures is worrying medical professionals and public health experts, who say such exposure could disproportionately impact children and other vulnerable populations.
“People have to realize these chemicals are not safe,” said Dr. Afif El-Hasan, a pediatrician and member of the American Lung Association’s board of directors. “We don’t know the long-term effects. We don’t understand their effects on children. Assume that children should have zero exposure to these chemicals.”
Tear gas — a catch-all term to describe chemical compounds that cause irritation to people’s eyes, lungs, mouth, nose and skin within seconds of exposure — has been deployed around residential streets and public spaces in at least four major American cities since last fall.
While at least one entity is tracking immigration-related demonstrations in the United States, there is no substantive monitoring on the exact number of times tear gas is deployed, who is deploying it and why, and what chemicals are being released into the air. Critical details like proximity of impact, length of exposure and whether an incident involved a vulnerable group is also unknown.
“This gap makes it difficult for the public, for researchers and for policymakers to quantify the impact or identity of these toxic air pollutants across states,” said Julie A. González, a demographer and environmental justice scholar.
Several types of chemical irritants are often lumped into a broad definition of tear gas, including those found in devices that disperse smoke when launched and pepper spray. Exposure to these “riot control agents” can cause chest tightness, coughing and shortness of breath. For people with diseases that impact their heart or lungs, the side effects can be more serious, said El-Hasan. They can be worse for children.
“Children’s bodies are different than adult bodies,” he said. “They’re growing. They take more breaths per minute than adults.”
Dr. Sarita Chung, a pediatrician at Boston Children’s Hospital, noted how children’s height can add potency to exposure.
“Children are usually closer to the ground, where........