I’m a Congressional Candidate. I Was Assaulted by ICE.

On Friday, Kat Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old Democratic U.S. House candidate in Illinois’s 9th congressional district, was thrown forcefully to the ground by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent at a protest outside an ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois. The incident garnered widespread attention after Abughazaleh shared the footage online.

Abughazaleh, a New Republic contributor, was among a crowd demonstrating outside the facility, which is being used in a controversial immigration enforcement operation underway in Illinois. Ostensibly a “processing facility” intended to hold detainees for no more than 12 hours at a time, the center has reportedly held detainees “for days or even weeks,” Abughazaleh said in a recent YouTube video. Protesters have gathered weekly outside the facility and on Friday were reportedly met with severe force: They were tackled, detained, tear-gassed, and pepper-sprayed by ICE agents, who were masked and clad in tactical gear.

Speaking with TNR hours after the protest, Abughazaleh described the abuses she witnessed and experienced earlier in the day.

Could you walk me through the sequence of events this morning that led to the moments you shared online?

For the past three weeks, I’ve been attending protests at the Broadview ICE facility. There’s been a vigil there for almost two decades at this point, but they started ramping up after three protesters were arrested four weeks ago.

Three weeks ago, we went, and it was very peaceful. We ended up actually getting a car to turn around. Last week, when we went, ICE assaulted a lot of us. We went early because they changed their deportation time to around 6 a.m. ICE threw me to the ground then and assaulted other protesters, as well. That was the same day as the Franklin Park murder, and someone else was shot with pepper balls then.

And then today, my friend and I woke up at 3 a.m. and went to the facility. We got there and were sitting on public property. ICE agents told us to essentially go away: “Your First Amendment rights are on the sidewalk.” Around 6 a.m., they started bringing out a van, and we were in the way, so an ICE agent once again picked me up and threw me to the ground—they love throwing me. The video that people saw was after that. But during that first altercation, they took one of the protesters inside the facility—that’s the first time this has ever happened. We don’t know what happened to that person—we still don’t know where they are.

What happened in the video that has been going around social media for most of the day?

The second altercation was when a car came out of the facility. I went to go aid another protester—once again, on public property. This is all on streets of the town of Broadview. That is when that video happened, when the officer picked me up and threw me on the ground.

And then around 8:30, 9 a.m., we saw that the protester that was arrested was being put in chains and brought into a van. And so I and about 40, maybe even 50, other people that stayed were arm-in-arm to block this car because someone was detained just for exercising their right to protest. ICE tried to run us over, like, plain and simple. A guy fell to the ground, and they kept driving. We got him up, thank God. They kept driving to the point that my friend was on the hood of the car. They started shooting us with pepper balls, and then they deployed tear gas.

The van drove away, and we don’t know where that protester is. In the chaos, they took two other people in. A little bit before that, they actually tried to take another protester, and I and two other guys—it was literally like tug-of-war—ended up keeping him out of the facility.

What have you made of the response to the video of you being thrown to the ground?

I mean, frankly, I’m shocked that people are shocked about this. They did similar [things] last week. This was the most aggressive action they’ve taken. But once last week, twice today, ICE has picked me up and thrown me on the ground.

Honestly, it doesn’t compare to what our neighbors who are trapped inside the Broadview processing facility are going through. They’re committing crimes against humanity there. This is a processing facility, so people are not supposed to be held for more than 12 hours at a time, but they are being held for days or even weeks. They are not given beds. They sleep on the concrete. They are not given hygienic products. They are not given hot meals. And these aren’t criminals. There are literally pregnant women and grandmothers in there. Last week when we saw them being loaded into a van, they were wearing the same clothes that they were detained in.

This is what ICE is. And we need to recognize that. It’s unfortunate that, just because I’m a congressional candidate, this is more newsworthy than if it would have happened to another protester. This shouldn’t be happening to anyone. And we don’t even know what is happening to the protesters who were kidnapped. We don’t know what is happening to our neighbors who were kidnapped and are being detained there. This is what Trump’s America looks like.

You tweeted, “This is what it looks like when ICE violates our First Amendment rights.” Could you expand on that?

The right wants to eliminate free speech. They want to eliminate the First Amendment. They only want people to express speech that they specifically allow. There is no type of capitulation that will satisfy them except complete and utter submission, which is why solidarity is so important. It’s why having companies like ABC cowering to Trump, or universities cowering to Trump, why that does so much harm to all of us.

And ICE is being able to operate with impunity. They are able to operate outside of the law. I don’t know who any of the men who have shoved me, pushed me, picked me up, shot pepper balls at my body—I don’t know who any of them are. They don’t have badge numbers. They don’t have names. They don’t have identification. They’re wearing masks. They’re wearing sunglasses at night. They’re wearing hats. They’re complete ghosts. For all I know, they’re just some guy that was like, “Today I want to work at the ICE facility and rough up some 110-pound girl.”

And that means that they can do whatever they want. This is the secret police. There’s no ifs, ands, or buts about it. And that means that they can designate anything a crime. They can designate protesting as a crime. They can say that speech is a crime. They can just assign any idea, ideology, condition, or act to you, and say, “Well, I saw it happen, so that’s what the truth is. And I can do whatever I want to this citizen, to this civilian, to this person who did nothing wrong, because I’m an ICE officer and I’m above the law.”

What would you like to see from your fellow Democrats?

We need Democrats to put up an aggressive response to ICE. This facility in Illinois needs to be shut down, but these facilities across the country need to be shut down. We need more representatives like [New York City Comptroller] Brad Lander to be standing up for our communities. We need elected representatives at all levels of government to be demanding these facilities have any sort of transparency and abide by our own laws. And it is not controversial or tearing us apart to insist that basic humanity, basic decency, is not only respected but expected in our country.