Donald Trump’s Department of Justice has indicted Democratic congressional hopeful Kat Abughazaleh, along with five others, for conspiring to impede the work of a federal law enforcement officer. The indictment makes Abughazaleh the latest Democratic figure to be targeted by the Trump administration for challenging the regime’s aggressive tactics.
Abughazaleh shared the news of her indictment today on social media. “This is a political prosecution and a gross attempt to silence dissent, a right protected under the First Amendment,” she says in the video.
The indictment accuses Abughazaleh — whose name is repeatedly misspelled in the document — of bracing her hands on the hood of an ICE vehicle that was attempting to drive through a group of protesters outside of the Broadview Processing Center, ICE’s Chicago command center.
Since announcing her candidacy, Abughazaleh has made ICE’s violent deployment in Chicago a focal point of her campaign, holding press conferences and participating in protests at Broadview. On social media, she’s documented officers reacting violently to protesters’ presence: Abughazaleh was slammed to the ground in one incident, and hit in the face with a baton during a separate encounter.
“Since 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 become our new normal,” she says in the video posted today. “And because Chicago doesn’t back down from bullies in masks who tear-gas our neighborhoods, this administration has resorted to weaponizing the federal justice system to scare us into silence. But we’re not going to be silent.”
Abughazaleh announced her bid to primary Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who has represented Illinois’ 9th District since 1999, in March. Soon after, Schakowsky announced her intention to retire when her current term expires, setting the stage for the first competitive primary in the district in almost 30 years.
Editor’s picks
Abughazaleh was the first to announce in a crowded field that had grown to 18 candidates, including two state senators, a state representative, and Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss. A recent poll, conducted by MDW Communications and commissioned by Abughazaleh’s campaign, showed the upstart trailing Biss by five points, and well ahead of the rest of the field, with nearly half of the electorate undecided.
According to a Public Policy Polling survey conducted in September, two-thirds of Chicago residents oppose the aggressive tactics ICE has used in the city.
Trending Stories
With the indictment, Abughazaleh joins a long list of Democrats who have been harassed by federal authorities for standing against ICE. Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) was indicted in June after a scuffle outside an ICE detention center in Newark. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander was detained by federal authorities at immigration court in New York. California Sen. Alex Padilla was handcuffed and escorted out of a press conference in Los Angeles.
“We are in an emergency,” Abughazaleh told Rolling Stone when she announced her candidacy in March. “Right now, the answer to authoritarianism isn’t to be quiet. It’s not matching pink outfits at a state address. It’s not throwing trans people under the bus. It’s not refusing to look at the party at all and see where it could be better. The answer is to very publicly, very loudly, very boldly, stand up. The only way to fight fascism, and this has been proven over and over and over again, is loudly, proudly, and every single day.”