loading . . . CHICAGO — The Justice Department has levied federal conspiracy charges against Democratic congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh and five others over protests outside the Broadview ICE facility since last month, according to an indictment unsealed on Wednesday.
Abughazaleh, Michael Rabbitt, Andre Martin, Catherine Sharp, Brian Straw and Joselyn Walsh are each being charged with conspiracy to impede or injure federal officers, according to a federal grand jury indictment that was returned under seal on Oct. 23. Some of those indicted protesters also face individual counts of assaulting, resisting or impeding officers as they protested outside the Broadview ICE facility last month.
Sharp is a Cook County board candidate and currently the chief of staff for Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th), and Rabbitt is a 45th Ward Democratic committeeperson. Straw is running for a seat on the Oak Park board of trustees.
The indictment focuses on a Sept. 26 protest and accuses the six people charged of surrounding a government vehicle as it approached the Broadview building “with the intent to hinder and impede” an agent from proceeding. According to the indictment, those six, and others, “banged aggressively” on the vehicle, crowded together and pushed against the vehicle.
Someone scratched the word “PIG” on the vehicle and broke a side mirror and windshield wiper, the indictment said. Abughezaleh and others are accused of putting their hands on the hood of the vehicle and remaining “directly” in its path.
In a post on social media, Abughazaleh on Wednesday described the case as “yet another attempt by the Trump administration to criminalize protest and punish those who dare to speak up.”
“That’s why I’m going to fight these unjust charges, but I need your help to do it,” Abughazaleh wrote to her followers alongside a fundraising plea. “We cannot diminish ourselves in the face of these tactics; it’s time to unite and show up for humanity, for our rights, for everyone terrorized by Trump’s lawless secret police.”
Abughazaleh has been a regular presence at protests outside the Broadview processing facility, sharing videos on social media of federal agents throwing her to the ground at one point last month.
> View this post on Instagram
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> A post shared by Kat Abughazaleh (@kabughazaleh)
The Justice Department has now charged two dozen people with either assaulting or impeding federal immigration officers in the past month, coinciding with its Operation Midway Blitz effort aimed at enforcing federal immigration laws, according to records reviewed by Block Club.
Five cases were quickly dismissed by prosecutors, including one in which a grand jury refused to return an indictment.
When U.S. District Judge April Perry issued a ruling that temporarily blocked the deployment of the National Guard in Illinois, she pointed to some of those dismissals when questioning the Department of Homeland Security’s “credibility and assessment of what is happening on the streets of Chicago.”
_This is a developing story. Stay tuned for updates._
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