Indictments and arrests against protesters have become part of Operation Midway Blitz. Whether the cases stick could depend on the legal definition of obstruction.
The Broadview Ice Facility has been the place of protest for many politicians running for public office, including progressive Congressional Candidate Kat Abughazaleh. She and five others have been indicted with a series of felonies related to a protest where she allegedly “banged aggressively and pushed an ICE agents vehicle.”
Abughazaleh says she was exercising her First Amendment rights.
“It’s going to depend on a lot of factors and circumstances that are difficult to tell or discern from a short video snippet,” UIC School of Law Prof. Steven Schwinn said.
Schwinn says physically interfering with a federal agent doing his job is the clearest definition of obstruction or impediment. The Trump administration has used both terms to arrest people protesting ICE enforcement
“We have seen how they try to intimidate people that are alerting the community by saying that they’re obstructing, by saying that they’re impeding,” Little Village Community Council President Baltazar Enriquez said.
Enriquez has witnessed in his community federal agents claiming obstruction against protesters with less than physical interference, which Schwinn says can be interpreted as legal.
“A person can interfere with a federal officer doing their job through things like even intimidation or some kind of other interference that is short of actual physical involvement,” Schwinn said.
But, in his legal opinion, Schwinn says the Trump administration has stretched the limits of what obstruction means when they have prosecuted protesters.
“If the Department of Justice seeks to lodge a charge, they very well may do it, but then it’s a different question entirely, whether that’ll survive the legal system,” Schwinn said.
Schwinn says charges likely won’t survive, if it is proved federal agents were acting unlawfully while doing their jobs.
In the meantime, Enriquez is not taking any chances. He advises his volunteers who look out for ICE to no longer follow the agents in caravans, stay six feet away and don’t engage.
“So we’re telling them not to get in any conversation with them,” Enriquez said. “Just blow the whistle. Back off. Do not get near them.”
Enriquez says by abiding by those rules, none of his volunteers have been arrested. He is convinced federal agents are is trying to provoke protesters to react in a violent way as a reason to send the National Guard.