{"id":49187,"date":"2025-10-29T18:09:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T23:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=49187"},"modified":"2025-10-30T00:37:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T05:37:19","slug":"democrat-running-for-congress-5-others-indicted-over-chicago-immigration-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=49187","title":{"rendered":"Democrat running for Congress, 5 others indicted over Chicago immigration protest"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Summary<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Six Chicago protesters indicted for impeding federal agents at immigration detention facility<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Federal agents deployed tear gas, fired pepper balls at protesters<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Several protesters and their attorneys say they will plead not guilty<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">CHICAGO, Oct 29 (Reuters) &#8211; Six people, including a Democratic congressional candidate, were indicted Wednesday on charges of impeding a federal officer in connection with a September protest at an immigration detention facility in Broadview, Illinois.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The suburban Chicago facility has been a flashpoint since U.S. President Donald Trump launched a stepped-up&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/us\/trump-administration-says-it-launches-ice-crackdown-illinois-2025-09-08\/\"><u>immigration enforcement operation<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;in the area on September 8. Agents have responded to protests on multiple occasions by deploying tear gas and shooting pepper balls at demonstrators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">In the indictment, prosecutors allege that on September 26, Kat Abughazaleh &#8211; a former journalist who is running for a U.S. House seat as a Democrat &#8211; and five other activists protesting at the Broadview site crowded around a government vehicle driven by a federal agent, intentionally hindering its progress as the agent tried to drive into the facility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">According to prosecutors, the activists &#8211; Abughazaleh and Andre Martin, Michael Rabbitt, Catherine Sharp, Brian Straw and Joselyn Walsh &#8211; banged and pushed on the vehicle, scratched the word &#8220;pig&#8221; into its body, and broke a rear windshield wiper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Several attorneys for the protesters denied the accusations on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Molly Armour, an attorney for Sharp, who is the chief of staff for Chicago alderperson Andre Vasquez, said the charges against Sharp are an &#8220;effort by the Trump administration to frighten people out of participating in protest and exercising their First Amendment rights.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Attorneys for Rabbitt and Walsh said their clients would plead not guilty to the charges. Abughazaleh told Reuters she would also plead not guilty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Straw, a member of the Village Board for Chicago suburb Oak Park, said in a statement the charges would not &#8220;deter me from fulfilling my oath of office.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The September 26 protest came weeks after the Trump administration announced the start of &#8220;Operation Midway Blitz,&#8221; an immigration enforcement campaign it said was needed because of city and state &#8220;sanctuary&#8221; laws that limit local law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Law enforcement officers have been using the Broadview facility to process detainees, and protests at the site intensified after the Trump administration&#8217;s announcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Federal agents&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/legal\/government\/scuffles-arrests-outside-chicago-ice-facility-that-has-been-protest-focus-2025-10-03\/\"><u>have shot pepper balls<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;and deployed tear gas at protesters, leading to a lawsuit by journalists, activists and clergy members. U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis earlier this month ordered agents involved in the Chicago crackdown to wear visible identification and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/us\/chicago-judge-questions-trump-officials-over-ice-agents-use-force-2025-10-20\/\"><u>limit their use<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;of anti-riot weapons such as pepper balls and tear gas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Chicago U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros said in a statement that federal officials &#8220;must be able to discharge the duties of their office without confronting force, intimidation, or threats.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The case will appear before U.S. District Judge April Perry, who earlier this month&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/legal\/government\/us-appeals-court-wont-allow-deployment-national-guard-illinois-while-it-weighs-2025-10-16\/\"><u>blocked Trump<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;from deploying hundreds of National Guard troops in Chicago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/legal\/government\/democrat-running-congress-5-others-indicted-over-chicago-immigration-protest-2025-10-29\/\">reuters<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CHICAGO, Oct 29 (Reuters) &#8211; Six people, including a Democratic congressional candidate, were indicted Wednesday on charges of impeding a federal officer in connection with a September protest at an immigration detention facility in Broadview, Illinois. The suburban Chicago facility has been a flashpoint since U.S. President Donald Trump launched a stepped-up&nbsp;immigration enforcement operation&nbsp;in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":49188,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1555,35111,1236,35112],"class_list":["post-49187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-chicago","tag-congressional-candidates","tag-democrats","tag-immigration-protest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49187"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49189,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49187\/revisions\/49189"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/49188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}