Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) slammed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after a confrontation in which he said he experienced “irritation and burning sensation in my eyes” on Monday. “I tried my best to get between the ICE agents and the crowd as the ICE convoy decided to just go ahead and plow through the crowd, which was just absolutely so dangerous of an action that they were doing. So, I remember, you know, the pepper balls starting to get shot towards my feet and past me,” Kim told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead.” Videos circulated online showed mutual aid volunteers pouring water into Kim’s eyes as he held an ice pack in his hand outside Delaney Hall, a Newark, N.J., detention center where protesters had gathered. In one video, he was speaking directly with ICE officers surrounding a detained individual, and in another, the senator was speaking with demonstrators.
“I did not get hit directly by a pepper ball, but certainly between the pepper balls and then the pepper spray that was happening, I certainly had, you know, irritation and burning sensation in my eyes and my throat, but more broadly, this was something that was avoidable,” he added, in comments highlighted by Mediaite. Later that day, Kim said he saw “chaos inside and outside” the detention center, in which about 300 migrants were holding a hunger strike and work strike against its conditions. “We were trying to find a way to be able to move forward that wasn’t going to escalate in this way, but ICE decided that they just had enough, and they were going to just move ahead,” Kim told Tapper. “And I just thought that was an incredibly dangerous action for them to do, and that continued problems, that continued threat of violence and escalation continues today, tomorrow. I mean, it just, we’re seeing just a heightened level of danger right now in New Jersey.”
In response to a video of Kim having his eyes washed out with water, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a Monday post on the social platform X that “no individuals were directly struck by pepper ball projectiles.” “On May 25, 2026, rioters obstructed law enforcement from exiting the ICE facility. Officers issued multiple lawful verbal commands for rioters to clear the area. Rioters refused to follow law enforcement commands and continue[d] to obstruct the exit route,” DHS added.
