ICE Denies Pepper-Spraying Rep. Adelita Grijalva in Incident Caught on Video

Federal immigration agents pepper-sprayed and shot crowd suppression munitions at newly sworn-in Arizona Rep. Adelita Grijalva during a confrontation with protesters in Tucson on Friday.

A video Grijalva posted online shows an agent in green fatigues indiscriminately dousing a line of several people — Grijalva included — with pepper spray outside a popular taco restaurant.

“You guys need to calm down and get out,” Grijalva says, coughing amid a cloud of spray. In another clip, an agent fires a pepper ball at Grijalva’s feet.

Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin denied that Grijalva was pepper-sprayed in a statement, saying that if her claims were true, “this would be a medical marvel. But they’re not true. She wasn’t pepper sprayed.”

“She was in the vicinity of someone who *was* pepper sprayed as they were obstructing and assaulting law enforcement,” McLaughlin continued. The comment suggested a lack of understanding as to how pepper spray works. Fired from a distance, pepper-spray canisters create a choking cloud that will affect anyone in the vicinity, as Grijalva’s video showed.

In a separate video Grijalva posted to Facebook, the Democratic representative from Southern Arizona described community members confronting approximately 40 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in several vehicles.

“I was here, this is like the restaurant I come to literally once a week,” she said, “and was sprayed in the face by a very aggressive agent, pushed around by others.” Grijalva maintained that she was not being aggressive. “I was asking for clarification,” she said. “Which is my right as a member of Congress.”

Video from journalists on the ground show dozens of heavily armed agents — members ICE’s high-powered Homeland Security Investigations wing and the Department of Homeland Security’s SWAT-style Special Response teams — deploying flash-bang grenades, tear gas, and pepper-ball rounds at a crowd of immigrant rights protesters near Taco Giro, a popular mom-and-pop restaurant in west Tucson.

According to McLaughlin, two “law enforcement officers were seriously injured by this mob that Rep. Adelita Grijalva joined.” She provided no evidence or details for the claim.

“Presenting one’s self as a ‘Member of Congress’ doesn’t give you the right to obstruct law enforcement,” McLaughlin wrote. The DHS press secretary did not respond to a question about the munitions fired at Grijalva’s feet.

Grijalva “was doing her job, standing up for her community,” Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., said in a social media post Friday. “Pepper-spraying a sitting member of Congress is disgraceful, unacceptable, and absolutely not what we voted for. Period.”

Additional footage from Friday’s scene shows Grijalva and members of the media face-to-face with several heavily armed, uniformed Homeland Security Investigation agents as they loaded at least two people — both with their hands zip-tied behind their backs — into a large gray van.

Grijalva identifies herself as a member of Congress and asks where they are being taken. One of the masked agents initially replies, “I can’t verify that.” Another pushes the congresswoman and others back with forearm. “Don’t push me,” Grijalva says multiple times. A third masked agent steps in front of the Arizona lawmaker, makes a comment about “assaulting a federal officer,” and then says the people taken into custody would be transferred to “federal jail.”

“We saw people directly sprayed, members of our press, everybody that was with me, my staff member, myself,” Grijalva said in her video report from Friday’s chaotic scene. She described the events as the latest example of a Trump administration that is flagrantly flouting the rule of law, due process, and the Constitution.

“They’re literally disappearing people from the streets,” she said. “I can just only imagine how if they’re going to treat me like that, how they’re treating other people.”

The violence Grijalva experienced Friday marked the latest chapter in what has been a dramatic year for Arizona’s first Latina representative.

Grijalva won a special election in Arizona’s 7th Congressional District earlier this year to replace her father, Raúl Grijalva, a towering progressive figure in the state who represented Tucson for more than 20 years before passing away in March.

Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson delayed the younger Grijalva’s swearing in for nearly two months amid the longest government shutdown in history. Grijalva would add the deciding signature on a discharge petition to release files related to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, which she signed immediately after taking office.