Law enforcement agencies in the United States have used excessive force and wielded crowd-control weapons in dangerous ways against demonstrators protesting the dramatic escalation in immigration enforcement. To document that misuse systematically, and give the public, government officials, and oversight bodies the information they need to prevent further abuses, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and the Human Rights Center at the University of California at Berkeley (HRC) documented 412 incidents where federal and local agencies misused crowd-control weapons (CCWs).
The incidents span from June 2025, when immigration enforcement protests began in earnest in Los Angeles and spread nationwide, through May 2026, when we stopped data collection. By targeting vulnerable and protected people, and improperly using CCWs, law enforcement agents around the country did not adhere to their own policies, guidelines, or law, resulting in harm to unarmed protesters exercising their First Amendment right of free speech and assembly.