Leigh Kunkel never saw the federal agent pointing a pepper ball gun at her face from about twenty feet away. Kunkel, a freelance journalist at a protest outside an immigration detention center in Chicago on September 26, was crouched behind a van when an agent took aim from a safe perch behind a chain link fence. He fired multiple rounds at Kunkel, video shows. Her nose exploded in blood and pain. “I was lucky that I’d been wearing the respirator. It very likely could have broken my nose if I hadn’t been,” Kunkel said. “Insanely lucky that he didn’t hit me, you know, two inches higher and I could have lost an eye.” Watch how immigration agents break rules using less-lethal weapons 6:07 • Source: CNN Watch how immigration agents break rules using less-lethal weapons 6:07 Firing a pepper ball gun at someone’s face violates numerous federal and local police rules – yet the incident is far from an aberration for the federal officers who have confronted protesters demonstrating against President Donald Trump’s mass deportation effort in cities like Minneapolis and Chicago. A CNN analysis of more than two dozen videos of federal agents using less-lethal weapons such as chemical sprays, pepper ball guns and rubber bullets found officers routinely violated both federal and local law enforcement use-of-force policies. Those include cases where officers deployed chemical weapons near children and numerous incidents where officers fired less-lethal weapons at protesters’ heads and faces from close range. In most of these cases, agents had no obvious reason to fear for their safety, a key requirement for this type of use-of-force. “They have violated every protocol on less-lethal (weapons) and crowd control,” former Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske said about these federal agents. “Not making an announcement to disperse, body-slamming people to the ground…they’re supposed to de-escalate, and they don’t.” The agents’ actions have had severe consequences for some protesters, who have lost eyesight, broken bones and suffered serious breathing complications and other injuries. Experts said federal agencies’ lack of specific policies and training for urban policing, combined with encouragement from Trump administration officials for agents to aggressively confront protesters, has created a perfect situation for widespread misuse of less-lethal weapons. Immigration agents’ actions have led to numerous legal challenges, most recently in Minneapolis, where Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty on March 2 announced a criminal investigation into 17 instances of “potentially unlawful behavior” by federal agents, including a Jan. 21 case in which CBP’s then-commander-at-large Gregory Bovino tossed a gas cannister toward protesters. “This is not a one-off or a two-off,” said Michael Smith, a former police officer and professor of criminology and criminal justice at University of Texas San Antonio. The numerous incidents on video show federal agents “are poorly trained, that they are poorly supervised, and that their agency and leadership have sent a message to them that these kinds of actions are acceptable.” DHS said in a statement that its agents are “highly trained in de-escalation tactics and regularly receive ongoing use of force training,” and said the less-lethal weapons were deployed amid a rise in assaults against immigration agents and a “campaign of violence against our law enforcement.” “The First Amendment protects speech and peaceful assembly – not rioting. DHS is taking appropriate and constitutional measures to uphold the rule of law and protect our officers and the public from dangerous rioters,” the agency said. “Anybody who lays a hand on our officers or tries to obstruct them is committing a felony and a federal crime.” Over the past year, the Trump administration has put thousands of immigration officers into an unfamiliar role: dealing with crowds of US citizens protesting their operations far from the border in tense urban street settings. Federal leaders made it clear that chemical agents are a key part of the government’s response. Last June, Bovino told a group of agents that Los Angeles “is our f***ing city,” and said, of less-lethal weapons, “We’re going to look at shipping tractor-trailer loads of that sh** in here.” To analyze how agents deployed those less-lethal weapons, CNN looked at two separate metrics – federal policies in place for the agents on the streets, and numerous local police rules for the weapons. While some federal agencies have specific rules around less-lethal weapons – including CBP, which prohibits intentionally firing pepper balls at heads unless deadly force is justified, among other restrictions – many, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, don’t direct agents on their use during protests or civil disturbances. ICE generally directs agents to use force “only when no reasonably effective, safe, and feasible alternative appears to exist.” CNN also compared the videos to use-of-force policies for seven police departments – including five in cities where ICE and CBP have deployed – as well as a Stanford Law School study analyzing policies of the nation’s 100 largest cities, and guidelines from national police leadership and labor organizations, many of which have much more specific rules around how to use the weapons in a crowd. In videos reviewed by CNN, federal agents use a variety of chemical sprays – including oleoresin capsicum (OC) derived from cayenne pepper and often referred to as pepper spray, and chlorobenzylidene malononitrile (CS), or tear gas – designed to inflict severe breathing and vision discomfort for crowd control. CBP and ICE offer only general rules of engagement for the sprays, though CBP does specify not to use pepper spray on small children, people who are visibly pregnant and operators of motor vehicles. But many police departments have stricter rules – including Chicago, which tells officers to avoid using pepper spray on people within three feet, and not to spray people already restrained. The Metropolitan Police of DC and other agencies say chemical agents should not be used on minors, people over 65 or to disperse activities protected by the First Amendment. CNN reviewed 20 videos of agents using chemical sprays or tossing chemical canisters, all of which appeared to violate either CBP and ICE policies or local policing standards. “There’s significant harms from these weapons, especially when they’re misused or overused,” said Rohini Haar, a medical adviser for Physicians for Human Rights, noting that they can cause severe injuries and permanent disabilities. During a protest in Minneapolis on January 21, video shows a Border Patrol agent sprayed a bystander in the face with pepper spray. The agent then sprayed a prone man being held on the ground in the face from inches away. Other officers then deployed at least three tear gas canisters seconds later, obscuring the entire scene in a cloud of chemicals. Neither the bystander nor the man on the ground, who was already under agents’ control, appeared to be actively resisting before they were sprayed – which would violate CBP policy. Similarly, CBP rules allow agents to use “area saturation” with chemical weapons against imminent threats or active resistance; the video shows people cursing and yelling, but only the agents appear to use physical force. Border Patrol agent pepper sprays man on the ground 0:08 • Source: CNN Border Patrol agent pepper sprays man on the ground 0:08 In a written response to CNN about the incident, DHS said, “Border Patrol agents who were in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area as part of a targeted enforcement operation were repeatedly harassed and blocked by hostile crowds … To safely clear the area agents had to use crowd control measures to disperse the hostile crowd.” In a January 26 video, as agents drove away from a raid on a Phoenix restaurant, one fired a blast of what appeared to be chemical spray out a truck window at people gathered and filming on a sidewalk. The video doesn’t include any indication of a verbal warning; no apparent provocation; and no sign that the agent who used the spray faced an imminent threat, or that the use of chemicals was, as CBP guidelines require, “objectively reasonable and necessary in light of the totality of the circumstances.” Federal immigration agents pepper spray observers in Phoenix 0:08 • Source: CNN Federal immigration agents pepper spray observers in Phoenix 0:08 DHS told CNN that, “As officers were leaving the scene after executing federal criminal search warrants, a rioter threw an object at a federal law enforcement vehicle—a federal crime and a felony.” On November 8, in the parking lot of a Sam’s Club in Cicero, Illinois, where federal agents were conducting immigration raids, video shows that someone driving by in a black pickup truck sprayed chemicals into the open window of a vehicle that held a family, including a one-year-old girl. They were sprayed without any warning or apparent provocation. Both CBP and the Chicago police department bar use of such chemicals without warning or against children. The girl’s father, Rafael Veraza, told reporters that his infant daughter “was struggling to breathe” and was briefly hospitalized after being affected by the spray. He said he was not protesting or trying in any way to interfere with the agents. In a written response to CNN, DHS denied the family’s account, stating, “There was no crowd control or pepper spray deployed in a Sam’s Club parking lot.” Videos also show federal agents using a variety of less-lethal impact projectiles, including 40mm launchers that can fire pepper balls, rubber bullets or tear gas. CBP rules say pepper balls and other projectiles should not be aimed at vulnerable areas such as the head or spine unless deadly force is justified. Many local police have more stringent requirements, including Washington, DC, where officers are instructed not to use projectile launchers, including pepper balls, within six feet of targets. CNN reviewed 14 videos of people struck by rubber bullets, CS munitions or pepper balls, many of whom were hit in vulnerable areas and injured – and often in situations that violated federal rules about when to use less-lethal force. Kunkel, the freelance journalist, had filmed several earlier incidents where agents fired pepper balls into a crowd of protesters in Chicago, before she was hit in the head and face multiple times. The pepper-ball shooting appears to violate several CBP and ICE policies – particularly CBP’s rule that pepper balls should only target people showing “assaultive resistance” and should not aim at the head unless deadly force is justified. Some police agencies outright ban firing at individuals like Kunkel, including the Chicago Police Department, which allows pepper balls only for “area saturation” against unruly crowds, with a supervisor’s approval. Since the shooting, Kunkel said she’s suffered spontaneous nose bleeds and days-long migraines. At the time, DHS issued a statement saying that officers “show incredible restraint in exhausting all options before any kind of non-lethal force is used” and that for journalists, “(b)eing near unlawful activities in the field does come with risks – though our officers take every reasonable precaution to mitigate dangers to those exercising their protected First Amendment rights.” On January 9, two days after the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis, Kaden Rummler, 21, was protesting outside a federal immigration building in Santa Ana, California, when officers grabbed a man holding a megaphone. As Rummler and several other unarmed protesters ran toward the agents, one officer fired rubber bullets from less than ten feet away, hitting Rummler in the right eye. The shooting fractured his skull and left him permanently blind in that eye, Rummler said. Another man was hit in the neck by a round. CBP rules say firing at such close distance constitutes deadly force and is only justified when an agent is in “imminent danger” of serious injury or death. “It was completely unnecessary,” Rummler said. “I’m 5’1’’, I weigh 102 pounds… just a push would have been enough to get me back.” In a written response to CNN, DHS referred to Rummler as “a rioter,” and said that protesters engaged in “a highly coordinated campaign of violence” against agents. The evening of September 19, in Chicago, Rev. David Black, a Presbyterian pastor, was protesting outside an ICE facility when he looked up at three masked officers standing on the roof of a building. “Without warning or any orders or requests to disperse, agents fired on Rev. Black, hitting him with exploding pellets of pepper spray on his arms, face, and torso,” a US district court judge in Chicago who reviewed the incident later wrote. Pastor in Chicago shot by immigration agent with pepper ball gun 0:07 • Source: CNN Pastor in Chicago shot by immigration agent with pepper ball gun 0:07 Agents also fired pepper balls at two other pastors and a journalist that evening, the judge wrote in a preliminary injunction ordering DHS, CBP and ICE to comply with their own policies on use of force. DHS said that the protesters were “impeding operations” and did not comply with orders. “Obstructing law enforcement puts officers, detainees and the public at risk,” the department said. “If you are obstructing law enforcement you can expect to be met with force.” Black disputed those claims, calling the account “categorically false.” “You’re not supposed to fire the pepper ball at anyone unless they’re an imminent threat,” Kerlikowske, the former CBP commissioner, told CNN. “You’re supposed to fire against the wall or the ground. They’re just shooting these people indiscriminately.” The Chicago order followed a similar September 2025 temporary injunction from a California federal judge restricting ICE and other federal agents’ use of force against Los Angeles protesters. The Los Angeles injunction was upheld on appeal; the Chicago injunction was stayed in November. On October 23, a Border Patrol agent with a tactical team accompanying Bovino fired a 40mm muzzle-blast chemical shell directly at the face of a Chicago protester filming with a cell phone. The agent fired the shot from less than ten feet away, about one minute after video cited in the Chicago lawsuit states Bovino told his crew, “If you need to deploy gas, deploy f****** gas.” Federal agent fires munition launcher at man in Chicago 0:05 • Source: CNN Federal agent fires munition launcher at man in Chicago 0:05 In an online post about the incident, the agency said, “Border Patrol agents repeated multiple warnings to back up and that chemical agents would be deployed if warnings were ignored. Riot control measures were deployed, including by Chief Bovino, and arrests were made.” DHS told CNN that in response to a letter from a member of Congress about Bovino’s actio