The charges were viewed as an attempt at stiffing protest and dissent against Trump’s government, those facing charges and their representatives said.
“The charges brought against Ms. Sharp are ludicrous,” Molly Armour, attorney for Sharp, said in a statement. “We are confident that a jury of Ms. Sharp’s peers will see them for exactly what they are: an effort by the Trump administration to frighten people out of participating in protest and exercising their First Amendment rights.”
Vasquez, who has worked with Sharp, 29, of Chicago, for years, said the charges won’t have the effect the Trump administration intends for them to have.
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The Sept. 26 protest at the heart of the indictment featured hours of conflict between federal agents and demonstrators. Agents deployed rubber bullets, pepper spray balls and pepper spray against protesters — at one point doing so for an hour and a half as outraged protesters crowded in a narrow parking lot adjacent to the facility. The riot-control weapons hit organizers, journalists and photographers who were also at the scene and, at one point, a sniper on the building’s roof fired projectiles that shattered the windows of a nearby business.
Organizers were forced to move locations during that day’s protest because federal officials had erected a fence in the street near the processing center. Earlier this month, a federal judge ordered the removal of that fence after the Village of Broadview filed a lawsuit that said it was put up illegally.
https://blockclubchicago.org/2025/10/29/broadview-ice-protesters-including-congressional-candidate-slapped-with-federal-conspiracy-charges/
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