U.S. Congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh stands with anti-immigration enforcement protesters outside an immigration detention center in Broadview, Illinois. Abughazaleh has been charged in connection with her efforts to delay the federal vehicle.
A photo of Congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh and her cat Heater taken from the 26-year-old's campaign website.

CHICAGO – Kat Abughazaleh, a leading voice among anti-immigration enforcement protesters in the city and a Democratic Congressional candidate, has been indicted over efforts to slow President Donald Trump’s crackdown in the area, she announced on Oct. 29.

The candidate for Illinois’ Ninth Congressional District was indicted on charges of assaulting, resisting and impeding federal officers. The charges stem from a protest on Sept. 26 outside an immigration enforcement processing center in the Chicago suburb of Broadview, Illinois. Abughazaleh is one of six people charged in connection with stepping in front of a federal vehicle at the protest, according to an indictment filed on Oct. 23.

In a post on X responding to the indictment, Abughazaleh called the charges "a political prosecution and a gross attempt to silence dissent."

"This case is a major push by the Trump administration to criminalize protest, and punish anyone who speaks out against them," Abughazaleh said. "That is why I’m going to fight these charges."

The case out of the Northern District of Illinois comes as the Supreme Court decides whether to allow President Donald Trump to deploy the National Guard to carry out the White House’s immigration enforcement crackdown known as Operation Midway Blitz. Trump administration lawyers have said that troops are needed to enforce federal law and have described the protests Abughazaleh was engaged in as "rebellion."

Andrew S. Boutros, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, issued a statement on the charges.

"All federal officials must be able to discharge the duties of their office without confronting force, intimidation, or threats," Boutros said. "As we have warned repeatedly, we will seek to hold accountable those who cross the line from peaceful protests to unlawful actions or conspiracies that interrupt, hinder, or impede the due administration of Justice. The rule of law must always be upheld."

Abughazaleh, Michael Rabbit, 62, Catherine Sharp, 29, Andre Martin, 27, Brian Straw, 38, and Joselyn Walsh, 31, are due in court on Nov. 5 to hear charges against them, according to court filings. They are expected to plead not guilty.

U.S. District Judge April M. Perry, the federal judge who barred Trump from deploying the National Guard, has been assigned the case. In hearing the case, Perry was skeptical of government lawyers, questioning whether the arguments they made that there was a rebellion underway in Illinois were "tethered to reality."

YouTuber aims for Congress

Abughazaleh delivered her response to the indictment in the fashion that saw her rise to becoming a potential member of Congress: seated and speaking into a microphone from a home studio while looking directly into the camera.

"As I and others have exercised our First Amendment rights, ICE has hit, dragged, thrown, shot with pepper balls and teargassed hundreds of protesters," she says in the video, "simply because we had the gall to say that masked men coming into our communities, abducting our neighbors and terrorizing us cannot be our new normal."

The 26-year-old candidate describes herself on her website as a former union representative and independent journalist.

Much of her rise took place on YouTube where her channel has 132,000 subscribers. An early popular video of hers is a firsthand look at U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee’s homeschooling program, which she labels a "Christian nationalist homeschooling program."

She also touts her unassuming background: "I'm not an out-of-touch policy wonk. I'm a renter. I went over a year without health insurance. My net worth is pretty much just the laptop I bought with my entire severance when I got laid off and my adorable cat, Heater."

On TikTok, where Abughazaleh has around 290,000 followers, her most popular video shows an armed federal agent throwing her to the ground. The video has 2.4 million views, roughly three times the size of the district she hopes to represent.

Illinois’ Ninth Congressional District covers the most northern parts of Chicago, neighboring Evanston and areas further north of the city.

Abughazaleh is running to replace Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who is not running for election after holding the seat since 1998, according to her website.

Among Abughazaleh’s top issues, according to her campaign site, are: "anti-authoritarianism," "basic existence" and "democratic reform."

"What if we didn’t suck?" a recurring tagline on the site asks.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Attempt to silence dissent': Congressional candidate indicted for ICE resistance in Chicago

Reporting by Michael Loria, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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