AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

We end today’s show in Chicago, where Juan is. As at least 10 people were arrested in protests outside an ICE facility Friday, with federal immigration agents firing pepper balls and using tear gas on the crowd, Democratic congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh was thrown to the ground by ICE agents. People had rallied outside the facility to protest the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz,” which has led to the arrest of nearly 550 people in a sweeping crackdown on immigrants in the city.

We are going to Chicago, where we’re joined by Kat Abughazaleh, who is a progressive congressional candidate in Illinois’s 9th District, which includes Chicago.

Kat, welcome to Democracy Now! Describe what happened to you. We’re going to show the video.

KAT ABUGHAZALEH: Yeah, so, this is actually the third time that ICE has thrown me to the ground. I have been at this facility for the last three weeks every Friday morning, and I’ll be back this Friday. I encourage anyone in Illinois to join me, 7 to 9 a.m. at 1930 Beach Street, B-E-A-C-H. This was, as I said, the third time that ICE has done this to me. It was probably the most violent occasion of throwing me to the ground. But, essentially, a car was about to run over a fellow protester, and so I went to check on that person. And that was all the justification an officer needed to pick me up and throw me to the ground despite being half his size.

And what I really want to stress here is that is what these officers are willing to do when there is press and cameras around. The reason we are protesting at this facility is because they are committing human rights abuses within the Broadview processing facility. It is a processing facility, so people are not supposed to be kept there for more than 12 hours at a time, but they are being kept for days or weeks, without beds, without hot meals, with hygienic products. And if they are willing to do that to a congressional candidate on camera in front of press, imagine what they are willing to do to their detainees behind boarded-up windows.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Kat, you say you found two badges there. What did it say on the badges?

KAT ABUGHAZALEH: So, I have no idea, the people who have accosted me. I have no idea who they are. I have no idea who these men are. They have had masks and sunglasses and hats, sometimes when the sun is still down. We have seen two badge numbers the entire three weeks that we have been here — four weeks, if we include a vigil earlier in the summer — and they were just numbers. There was no name, and there was no identifying law enforcement agency. I have no idea if these men are actually affiliated with ICE. For all I know, this could just be random men who said, “I’m going to put on a mask and a costume I got from Spirit Halloween to make me feel like I’m in the Army, and go and rough up some protesters today.” We have no idea who these people are.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And in terms of what you know about the conditions in the Broadview facility, could you talk about that?

KAT ABUGHAZALEH: Yes, this Broadview facility is horrific. We’ve gotten reporting about dozens of people being kept in one cell. And these are our neighbors. These are pregnant women and grandmothers sleeping on concrete floors. I have not been inside the facility. Elected officials that have tried to inspect it have not been allowed inside. But I can attest that two weeks ago, when I saw prisoners being marched into a van, they were in the same clothes they were detained in, and we have no idea how long they’ve been in there, and they were in the same clothes they were detained in. The conditions at this facility are horrendous. They are committing crimes against humanity. And it is so important to remember that all of the treatment that we went through as protesters doesn’t hold a candle to what these detainees are dealing with. I mean, ICE agents shot and killed a man two Fridays ago in the Chicago area. They are able to act with impunity. They are able to hurt whoever they want. Last Friday was the first time they had taken protesters inside the facility.

And while the video of me being thrown to the ground has gone kind of viral, I want to talk about a few other things that happened that day, because they haven’t been covered as much. We had to play tug of war with a man’s body to keep him from being abducted inside the facility. Right before we were tear-gassed, ICE was carrying a van with a protester that had been detained inside of the van. We stood arm in arm. All this is happening on Broadview public property, on public streets. They tried to ram the van through us. A man fell in front of the van, and the van was going to drive over his head, and I helped him up before that happened. But they were totally willing to do that. They shot a man in the face with a pepper ball bullet. They tear-gassed us as they were trying to drive a car through a crowd. And then, after that, they threw a tear gas canister at the press area, very intentionally, after protesters were already dispersing, because, you know, we were coughing and trying to get tear gas out of our eyes.

AMY GOODMAN: Kat Abughazaleh, you are running for Congress, a congressional candidate in Illinois’s 9th District, which includes Chicago. The election is in November of ’26, the ultimate election. Why are you running for Congress?

KAT ABUGHAZALEH: I’m a researcher and journalist who covers the far right. I have spent my career deradicalizing and educating people on far-right narratives and misinformation. I have spent my career, just as my colleagues have, trying to get Democrats to put up a resistance to the far right, to understand that the old playbook is gone and that it’s not coming back. And I don’t feel like our leaders are doing that. And so I got sick of waiting around, and I decided to run the type of campaign I think we should.

And that is with unapologetic progressivism, anti-fascism and using our resources to materially improve people’s lives right now. So, we do voter outreach, but our campaign office also doubles as a mutual aid hub. We don’t ask for $500 a plate at an event. For our kickoff event, for instance, we asked people to bring a box of pads or tampons for Chicago’s Period Collective. We are about mobilizing people on the ground right now and making politics as accessible as possible, while also not compromising on basic human rights.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And you’re running for the seat to replace Jan Schakowsky, who’s retiring. There are several other candidates running in that field right now. Why do you think that voters would be best choosing you as the candidate?

KAT ABUGHAZALEH: You know, Illinois does a lot of things right, and that’s the reason they aren’t dealing with, until very recently, people like Stephen Miller and Elon Musk on a daily basis. I have been. I am the only candidate in my race with a track record of fighting and winning against the far right.

I am the most effective communicator in my race. And I am the only candidate in my race to have the majority of her money come from small-dollar donations. We’ve raised over a million dollars, and our average donation is just 32 bucks. We have over 7,000 volunteers, and that’s not because I’m some force. It’s because people want progressive policies. They want commonsense policies. They want a center that recenters — 

AMY GOODMAN: Five seconds.

KAT ABUGHAZALEH: — actual voters. And that’s what we deserve from our leaders.

AMY GOODMAN: Kat Abughazaleh, I want to thank you for being with us, progressive congressional candidate in Illinois’s 9th District, which includes Chicago. That does it for our show. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.