This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
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.