A progressive congressional candidate in Illinois has been indicted on federal charges stemming from protests outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in a nearby suburb of Chicago.
Kat Abughazaleh, 26, a social media influencer and former journalist running for Congress in Illinois’s 9th District, was hit with two counts: conspiracy to impede or injure an ICE officer and assaulting or impeding them while they engaged in their official duties.
She’s charged alongside five others, including Michael Rabbitt, a Democratic committeeperson in Chicago’s 45th Ward, and Catherine Sharp, who is running to sit on the Cook County Board of Commissioners.
Court records show the indictment was handed up by a grand jury last week but unsealed by a federal judge on Wednesday.
The indictment says Abughazaleh and her co-defendants “surrounded” an ICE officer’s vehicle on Sept. 26 as he attempted to reach the immigration enforcement facility in Broadview, Ill., which has become the focus of protests in the area.
The group allegedly “banged aggressively” on the government vehicle and crowded together on the front and side of the car, pushing against it to impede its movement. They also etched the message “PIG” into the body of the car and broke both a mirror and a windshield wiper, prosecutors say.
“It was further part of the conspiracy that the co-conspirators … physically hindered and impeded Agent A and the Government Vehicle such that Agent A was forced to drive at an extremely slow rate of speed to avoid injuring any of the conspirators and in doing so slowly progressed towards the BSSA to discharge the duties of his office,” the indictment reads.
In a statement posted to Instagram, Abughazaleh said she was charged for exercising her First Amendment rights over ICE tactics in Chicago, while federal agents have “hit, dragged, thrown, shot with pepper balls, and teargassed hundreds of protesters, myself included.”
“Because Chicago doesn’t back down from bullies in masks who teargas our neighborhoods, this administration is resorting to weaponizing the federal legal system to scare us into silence,” the congressional candidate wrote. “But we are not going to be silent.”
If convicted, the conspiracy count carries a sentence of up to six years in prison, and the assault count carries up to an eight-year sentence.
The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge April Perry, who is also overseeing the case regarding President Trump’s efforts to deploy the National Guard to Chicago — in part to help protect the Broadview ICE facility, according to federal officials.
The others charged are Andre Martin, Brian Straw and Joselyn Walsh.
Abughazaleh’s lawyer, Joshua Herman, called the case a “political prosecution that tries to turn dissent and First Amendment opposition to the Trump administration’s cruel policies into a conspiracy.”
“Kat has steadfastly opposed those policies and she will fight these charges with the same principled determination,” he said.Â
Brad Thomsen, who represents Walsh, called the indictment an “egregious attack on First Amendment protected activity” and said Walsh would plead not guilty.Â
The Hill requested comment from lawyers for Sharp and Straw. The court docket did not immediately show defense attorneys listed for Rabbitt and Martin.
Abughazaleh is a former video producer at the liberal watchdog Media Matters for America who has also garnered a TikTok following of more than 289,000 people.Â
The congressional candidate is running to replace Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who announced in May she would not seek another term, in the northern Chicago suburbs.
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