Kat Abughazaleh is in the crosshairs of the Department of Justice.
The 26-year-old Democratic candidate for a seat in Congress has been indicted for allegedly conspiring with others to impede on an ICE officer’s work while protesting outside of an immigration facility in Broadview, Illinois .
Abughazaleh was named alongside five other defendants. Among them are Brian Straw and Cat Sharp, who are also Democratic politicians in Illinois.
According to the federal indictment, an unidentified ICE agent was “forced to drive at an extremely slow rate of speed to avoid injuring any of the conspirators.”
Protesters including former journalist Abughazaleh have gathered on public property outside of the processing facility for more than a month to bring attention to the horrific conditions within the building, where detainees are held without proper beds, food, or medical care.
And while the DOJ believes that Abughazaleh’s actions are grounds for prosecution, critics find such claims highly doubtful.
Kat Abughazaleh won’t let a federal indictment stop her fight against ICE.
“Not to downplay the seriousness of this indictment but the federal government is claiming that kat abughazaleh, a labubu-sized woman, impeded the movement of an SUV,” one user wrote via BlueSky.
But to Abughazaleh, this goes way beyond accusations of blocking a vehicle. She believes this is a targeted attempt to silence opposing views—and she isn’t the only Democratic politician to face the Trump administration’s legal wrath for protesting.
Sen. Alex Padilla of California was arrested for calling out Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as the National Guard infiltrated Los Angeles. Rep. LaMonica McIver of New Jersey and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka have also been targeted for protesting at ICE facilities.
“This is a pattern of political prosecution of anyone who criticizes this administration’s immigration policy, of its overreach, and of the mass, lawless secret police that Trump is siccing on particularly blue cities,” Abughazaleh told Daily Kos Friday.
Chicago has been a hot spot of unrest in recent months. ICE and Border Patrol agents have used aggressive tactics—including the tear gas and Black Hawk helicopters—to target immigrants in the Windy City.
And the man in charge, Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino, has been the subject of his own legal case because of the heavy-handed approach.
As for Abughazaleh, this is the Gen-Z politician’s first legal battle. Speaking to Daily Kos from her campaign office while dressed in a Snorlax onesie—which she says is fitting because she has narcolepsy—she said that she’s been searching for a lawyer and researching how to approach the case against her.
But that’s not going to stop her from campaigning and promoting a blood and bone marrow drive hosted by her campaign office.
Read Daily Kos’ full conversation with Abughazaleh below.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Daily Kos: You’ve recently been federally indicted. What was your reaction to when you first heard about this?
Abughazaleh: You know, I’ve covered the right. That was my career, covering the right as a journalist and a researcher and fighting back, talking about misinformation narratives. It’s not surprising. It is surreal to see my name on the indictment and my full name, which has so many letters. But the only thing that’s been surprising about some of the most heinous acts of this administration is just how fast they’ve happened.
You know, I spent, alongside my colleagues, the last year warning about Project 2025 and the last five years, trying to tell Democrats about the threat of the far right. We told them about Jan. 6 ahead of time, about COVID misinformation, about where the DEI-CRT-trans panic would lead to. And it happened anyway. No one heeded our warnings. And even with this, even knowing what was going to happen. None of us expected it to happen so fast, and I did not expect my name to be on an indictment so fast.
DK: You have been showing up to Broadview. You’ve really spoken out about immigration issues and standing up for what you believe in. But you’re not the only person who’s been in the spotlight for the DOJ coming after them. There was Rep. McIver in New Jersey. There’s Mayor Baraka of Newark, Judge Dugan in Wisconsin, Sen. Alex Padilla. This seems to be a trend.
Abughazaleh: The reason it seems like a trend is because that’s exactly what it is. This is a pattern of political prosecution of anyone who criticizes this administration’s immigration policy, of its overreach, and of the mass, lawless secret police that Trump is siccing on particularly blue cities. The reason I was protesting in the first place—the thing that Trump is trying to criminalize—is because of the conditions at the Broadview processing center where ICE headquarters its operations in the Chicago area, and because of the terror campaign that ICE has waged on Chicago. Broadview, for instance, is a processing center. So people aren’t supposed to be held for more than 12 hours, but they’re held for days or weeks at a time without beds or hot meals or hygienic facilities. This is what we heard months ago, and now we’ve recently heard even more eyewitness accounts of people who, despite fearing for their own safety, their family safety, have spoken out, describing people being denied water of going into cardiac arrest, being carried out on stretchers, being given fake translators so they will sign their own deportation notices.
Related | Kat Abughazaleh is taking on ICE—and running for Congress
And you know, in the city proper, we’re seeing a terror campaign. That’s what it is. A Halloween parade being tear gassed. Children being tear gassed so that way ICE can abduct our neighbors. Going into businesses, going into homes, rappelling from Black Hawk helicopters in the middle of the night to zip tie children and throw them in the back of a van. What are we doing here? These are things that should be criticized, and the administration wants to continue doing it, and that’s why they are trying to use the federal justice system to attack.
DK: But this is the thing, right? You’ve been targeted for allegedly, what I, what the internet is saying, slowing down a vehicle. But then there’s Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino in Chicago right now, who seems to be dodging judge’s orders. The DOJ is fighting against judges in Chicago because he threw tear gas into crowds, and he’s taking an extremely aggressive approach. Do you have any response to that? Have you heard people talk about that disconnect of how they’re treating protesters versus how they’re treating their own people who seem to be harassing the community?
Abughazaleh: This is a pattern of unaccountability. ICE and federal agents are not being held accountable for their crimes. The entire time I protested at Broadview, I’ve seen two batch numbers on nonlocal police. That means that anyone that is abusing, anyone in masks, abusing the public, throwing tear gas at the press—we don’t know who they are. They could genuinely just be some guy that woke up and went to an Army surplus store. The approach by this administration of sheer hypocrisy and terror is so stark. I’ve never seen anything like it in the United States. If any other administration had people throwing tear gas out of a car into residential neighborhoods, I can’t imagine that it would fly, much less happen multiple times. And I think the longer this lack of accountability goes on, the worse it will get.
DK: Do you think that the administration is afraid of you, afraid of people who are protesting?
Abughazaleh: Yes, this administration is afraid. They want to scare us. That’s why they have waged a terror campaign in Chicago. They thought that would be enough, and it wasn’t. People are defiant. They’re scared, but they are defiant. In my neighborhood, in Rogers Park, we have ICE watch going on all hours of the day. School watches—people with whistles that just patrol the neighborhood. And if they see ICE, they blow it, and they make sure people are aware. And the community comes out and there is witness. And ICE is scared of witnesses. This administration is scared that they can’t seem to crush our hope, our solidarity, our belief and commitment to the First Amendment, and that is why they are now using the legal system against us, and they are hoping that this will be enough to scare us.
Federal immigration enforcement agents detain a protester in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood on Oct. 23.
And don’t get me wrong, this is scary, just like every time I’ve been thrown to the ground by ICE, every time I’ve been tear gassed, every time I’ve been shot with pepper balls, that’s been scary. But standing up for what you believe isn’t about doing it without fear. It’s doing it despite the fear. And that’s what so many people across the country and especially right here in Chicago, have been doing. That’s really what the far right is. At its core, it’s fear of being irrelevant, of things that are different, fear of losing control, losing power. That is why their messaging depends on fear. It depends on pitting us against each other to distract us from billionaires and oligarchs that are trying to hold this country ransom for their own profit.
No matter how scared I or anyone else feels, I think we can take some comfort knowing that they are more scared. They are more afraid, and they know that they are on the wrong side of history.
DK: Do you think that this is going to stop you in any way from protesting, from speaking out, and from supporting the immigrant community?
Abughazaleh: Nothing will stop me from speaking out and supporting the immigrant community. You know, this is my first and hopefully only time being federally indicted, so I’m learning the process of getting a lawyer and going through all of these motions, but I believe in the First Amendment. It’s one of the most precious things we have. I have believed in my values since I was a child. I truly believe that if you don’t stand by your values, even to your own detriment, then you have nothing at all. And so there is no unconstitutional attack that can make me stop talking about what is right and stop standing up for others. That’s why I’m running for Congress, and that’s why I’m going to win on Election Day and in court.
DK: Do you have any advice for the people who either have been protesting or want to get involved who have seen your indictment, and they’re like,” Oh, I don’t, want to be attacked.”
Abughazaleh: Look, I get it. I think it’s misleading to say that you wouldn’t understand that. At the same time, the reason they were freaking out about No Kings Day is because there’s safety in numbers. There is safety when we are all standing up for what we believe, and when we show that even if we’re afraid, we’re less afraid together. Nonviolent action is what triggered Donald Trump into posting a video of him spraying the country with diarrhea, which I’ve never seen a president do before.
If they’re triggered by the people that they claim to represent, what do you think they’ll do to you if you don’t stand up to them? Now, I encourage people to understand their own risk situation.
Everyone has different situations. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, and we all have a part to play right now in fighting authoritarianism. And whether that is protesting, whether that’s checking on your neighbor, whether that’s helping distribute mutual aid, whether that is patrolling for ICE, whether that is taking care of yourself—we all have something we can do right now, and we need to actually do it.
DK: [In regards to] people who are maybe unsure of how they feel about people being arrested when it comes to protesting. There are people saying, “Oh, they should let them do their jobs. They should not impede. They should expect this.” I see those comments online a lot. How do you explain to people who have this differing opinion where you’re coming from?
Abughazaleh: What I want people to know is this is not left or right, and it never has been. This is a state terror campaign that is meant to attack the people they have spent years prepping the public to accept as “other.” And this has happened in every authoritarian regime we’ve seen. First they go after visible minorities and especially queer people, often Jewish people, and then it slides down from there to communists or socialists or anti capitalists, and then it goes to anyone who disagrees with what anything the administration is doing. And if there’s anything that you have seen this president do and you’ve thought, I don’t know if I agree with that, just know it will eventually come for you.
Norms and inaction have been used to justify some of humanity’s greatest injustices, worst crimes. Our dignity is what we are born with, and in America, the First Amendment is something we are guaranteed under our Constitution, and that goes for everyone.
