Noem backtracks on claim 'chemical irritants' aren’t used against peaceful protesters

19 January

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in New York City on January 8, 2026. REUTERS/David 'Dee' Delgado

On Friday, January 16 in Minneapolis, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Menendez issued a preliminary injunction barring U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers from using "chemical irritants" like pepper spray against nonviolent protesters in that city. Menendez ruled that ICE agents can "only use those chemical agents when there's violence happening" — not against demonstrators who are nonviolently exercising their "protected First Amendment rights to assemble and to observe and protest ICE operations."

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem initially denied the judge's finding. But The Guardian's Edward Helmore notes that after Noem was shown "a video of chemical agents being used on four occasions," she "backtracked and said her department 'only use those chemical agents when there's violence happening and perpetuating and you need to be able to establish law in order to keep people safe.'"

"Tensions continue to run high in Minneapolis, with the Pentagon ordering around 1500 active-duty soldiers stationed in Alaska to prepare for a possible deployment — which Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has described as a 'ridiculous' overreaction to largely peaceful protests against the violent behavior of ICE agents," Helmore explains in an article published on January 19. "On Sunday, (January 18), the Department of Justice also declared it is investigating a group of protesters who disrupted services at a church where a local ICE official is reportedly a pastor. Footage livestreamed by Black Lives Matter Minnesota showed people interrupting services at the Cities church in St. Paul by chanting 'ICE out' and 'justice for Renee Good,' referring to the 37-year-old mother of three who was fatally shot by an ICE agent."

According to reporting from ABC News on January 18, four attorneys representing clients arrested during ICE operations in Minneapolis said they were not allowed to see their clients.

An attorney, interviewed on condition of anonymity, told ABC News, "ICE agents were physically restricting me from seeing them. I stood outside the attorney visitation room for about four hours on Thursday, trying to see one of my clients who had been there for multiple days. I kept saying, 'You got to let me see my client.' And they just kept repeating, 'We don't do attorney visitation.'"

Read the full Guardian article at this link.

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