CHICAGO (AP) — A Democratic congressional candidate in Illinois has been indicted along with five others accused of blocking vehicles during September protests outside a federal immigration enforcement building in suburban Chicago, according to court documents.
The indictment, filed last week by a special grand jury, accuses Kat Abughazaleh of blocking a federal agent outside the immigration processing center.
“This is a political prosecution and a gross attempt to silence dissent, a right protected under the First Amendment. This case is a major push by the Trump administration to criminalize protest and punish anyone who speaks out against them,” Abughazaleh said Wednesday in a video posted to BlueSky.
Protesters have been gathering outside the immigration center to oppose enforcement operations in the Chicago area that have led to more than 1,800 arrests and complaints of excessive force
Greg Bovino, who is leading Border Patrol efforts in Chicago, was ordered this week by U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis to brief her every evening about the operations. It is an unprecedented bid to impose real-time oversight on the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in the city after weeks of tense encounters and increasingly aggressive tactics by agents.
Federal prosecutors accuse Abughazaleh and others of surrounding a vehicle driven by a federal agent on Sept. 26 and attempting to stop it from entering the facility.
Among the others named in the indictment are a candidate for the Cook County Board, a Democratic ward committeeman and a trustee in suburban Oak Park.
The group banged on the car, pushed against it, broke a mirror and scratched the text “PIG” on the vehicle, the indictment said.
Abughazaleh at one point put her hands on the vehicle’s hood and braced her body against it while staying in its way, the indictment says. The agent was “forced to drive at an extremely slow rate of speed to avoid injuring any of the conspirators,” it says.
Abughazaleh is running in a crowded Democratic primary to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Jan Schawkosky.
Protesting the immigration crackdown around Chicago has emerged as a top issue on campaigns in Illinois’ March primary. Elected officials and candidates in the Democratic stronghold have often showed up for demonstrations outside the Broadview federal facility.
“As I and others have exercised our First Amendment rights, ICE has hit, dragged, thrown, shot with pepper balls, and tear-gassed hundreds of protesters, simply because we had the gall to say that masked men coming into our communities, abducting our neighbors, and terrorizing us cannot be our new normal,” Abughazaleh says in the video.
“As scary as all of this is, I have spent my career fighting America’s backslide into fascism,” she says. “I’m not gonna stop now, and I hope you won’t either.”
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Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio.
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