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A far-left professor at the University of Chicago was arrested Friday and charged with violent felonies stemming from riots at an ICE facility in the suburbs of the city.
Associate Professor Eman Abdelhadi of the University of Chicago’s Department of Comparative Human Development was arrested on Oct. 3 and charged with two counts of aggravated battery to a government employee, a Class 3 felony, and two counts of resisting/obstructing peace, a Class A misdemeanor, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office confirmed Monday to Fox News Digital.
Abdelhadi was released from custody after her initial appearance on Saturday.
A mugshot of Eman Abdelhadi from Oct. 3, 2025. (Cook County Sheriff’s Office)
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Court records show her next scheduled hearing is Tuesday.
A university spokesperson confirmed to Fox News Digital that Abdelhadi is an associate professor at the school.
Left-wing agitators have been rallying outside the ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois, for weeks. Rioters have blocked ICE vehicles from exiting the facilities, and have been involved in a slew of violent confrontations with police, leading to more than a dozen arrests.
Posts from Abdelhadi’s X account show that she was at the rally on Friday. In her last post at 8:52 a.m., she took a photo of a line of Illinois State Police officers, and accused the state of “enforcing Trump’s agenda of terrorizing our community with abductions.”
She has not posted since.
Professor Eman Abdelhadi criticized her employer, the University of Chicago, at the Socialism 2025 convention. (University of Chicago)
A day before her arrest, she appeared on a podcast called “Movement Memos,” which is affiliated with the far-left publication Truthout. During that interview, she recalled her previous experiences at the riots at the Broadview facility.
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“These people are terrorizing our communities and they’re setting up shop,” she said, referring to federal immigration officials. “I mean, in Broadview, ICE has been setting up shop in our backyard. Just brazenly taking up community resources to terrorize this very same community. And so it felt really important to join protesters out there to say, not in our city, not in our name, not in our backyard.”
She later expressed her frustration at centrist liberals.
“There’s no center left,” she said. “You’re either resisting or you’re complicit.”
Abdelhadi made headlines earlier this year when she cursed out her employer at a July conference called Socialism 2025.
Federal law enforcement agents confront demonstrators protesting outside an immigrant processing center on Saturday in Broadview, Illinois. One protester allegedly threatened to kill federal officers. (Getty Images)
“F— the University of Chicago, it’s evil, you know it’s a colonial landlord. Like, why would I put any of my political energy into this space? I kind of had a little bit of disdain for people who spent their time doing that,” she said.
However, she reasoned that teaching there was her only chance to have any power.
“Turns out, I work at one of the biggest employers in the city of Chicago. I work at a place that is a landlord, a healthcare provider, a police force, f— that s—, but, they are, and a place where I have access to thousands of people that I could potentially organize… actually, this is where I need to build power. That’s possible structural leverage,” she said.
Federal law enforcement arrive near an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Ill., on Friday, Oct. 3, 2025. (AP/Erin Hooley)
Socialism 2025 described itself as a “a four-day conference bringing together thousands of socialists and radical activists from around the country to take part in discussions about social movements, abolition, Marxism, decolonization, working-class history, and the debates and strategies for organizing today.”
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The professor spoke on a panel called “Revolutionary Accompaniment: Holding Each Other When Things Fall Apart.”
According to the Truthout interview, she also organizes with Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine at the University of Chicago, and has referred to the war in Gaza as a “genocide.”
“This is a painful lesson that a lot of us in the Palestine solidarity movement have been learning is that we don’t have power… what we don’t have is power… the question I’m asking myself, and I’m asking you to ask yourself, ‘is where can I actually build power?’” she said at Socialism 2025.
Much of her X feed consists of resharing posts that are critical of Israel, but she shares some posts of her own.
Federal law enforcement agents break up protesters outside of an immigrant processing center with a barrage of tear gas and pepper balls on Sept. 27, 2025, in Broadview, Illinois. The demonstrators were protesting a recent surge in ICE apprehensions in the Chicago area, part of a push by the Trump administration dubbed Operation Midway Blitz. (Getty Images)
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“Do you see that fight for Palestine is the fight for the whole world? A world where no one is disposable, where no one is disappeared—not by ICE or the IDF, where the will of the people of the world matters more than the will of profit and empire. Do you see it?” she recently wrote.
Abdelhadi did not return a request for comment.
Fox News’ David Spector contributed to this report.