Just over half of the misuses of force against anti-ICE demonstrators were directed at protesters, while 43 percent targeted journalists, find Physicians for Human Rights and the Human Rights Center at the University of California at Berkeley.
Anti-ICE protester in Chicago holding a sign about 38-year-old Silverio Villegas González, who was killed on Sept. 12, 2025, by an unnamed ICE agent while trying to flee a traffic stop in the Franklin Park suburb of Chicago. (Paul Goyette /Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 4.0)
By Brad Reed
Common Dreams
Federal, state, and local law enforcement agents’ brutal attacks on protesters across the U.S. have caused blindings, traumatic brain injuries, permanent disabilities and other maladies, according to a report released Monday by researchers at Physicians for Human Rights and the Human Rights Center at the University of California at Berkeley.
In an examination of actions taken by authorities in response to demonstrations against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions over the span of a year, the report documents 412 instances of misuse of force against protesters, journalists, and bystanders.
Tactics used by ICE and other law enforcement agencies have come back into focus over the last week after the fatal ICE shootings of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas and Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Maine over the span of less than a week.
Just over half of the misuses of force were directed at demonstrators, while 43 percent were directed at journalists, the report finds.
This misuse of force against anti-ICE demonstrators led to 203 documented injuries affecting 119 individuals, including 44 incidents of laceration, 19 traumatic brain injuries, 10 ocular injuries, seven permanent disabilities, and one instance each of amputation and hearing loss.
The report adds that the actual number of injuries inflicted upon anti-ICE demonstrators “is likely far greater” given researchers’ limitations in documenting “invisible injuries” such as chronic pain or hearing loss.
What is particularly troubling, the report emphasizes, is the number of injuries impacting people’s heads.
“The high number of head injuries (19 brain, 10 eye, 1 hearing loss) suggests a pattern of force directed towards the head,” the researchers write. “Whether intentionally or recklessly, this violates virtually all use-of-force guidelines and results in significant harm.”
The report documents 97 incidents of law enforcement officials shooting crowd control projectiles at people’s heads, making it the second-most frequent type of improper force used, following shots taken at close range.
Dr. Rohini Haar, the lead author of the report, said in an interview with The Guardian that she started tracking misuse of force in response to anti-ICE protests after a federal agent shot a pastor in the face at close range during a demonstration in Oakland last year.
“Those weapons can cause harm,” said Haar, who for years has been researching the health impacts of crowd control weapons. “It’s just when they’re used, how they’re used, and if they’re used.”
Salgado Araujo, 52, was an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who had lived in the U.S. for more than three decades and ran a small construction business. Sebastian Guerrero, 26, was a Colombian national who was authorized to work in the U..S and was shot and killed by ICE in front of his 3-year-old daughter.
Brad Reed is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
This article is from Common Dreams.
The views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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