Charges dropped against activists in Chicago immigration crackdown amid
grand jury misconduct claims
[May 22, 2026]
By SOPHIA TAREEN
CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago's top federal prosecutor abandoned a closely
watched case Thursday against four activists who protested outside a
federal building during last year's immigration crackdown in the city,
after a judge scrutinized allegations of grand jury misconduct by the
prosecutor's office.
U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros announced the decision to dismiss the
remaining charges in court following a closed-door meeting over redacted
grand jury transcripts. He told U.S. District Judge April Perry he was
unaware until recently of the alleged misconduct, including a prosecutor
meeting with a grand juror outside proceedings and other jurors who
disagreed with the case being dismissed prevented from participating.
Boutros did not dispute the allegations, saying the conduct was
upsetting and the reason the case was being dismissed.
"No one acted with the intent to mislead your honor, and I think that
they were following your order to give the law,” Boutros said.
Boutros, who was appointed by the Trump administration last year,
declined to comment further Thursday through a spokesman.
The case, slated to go to trial next week, is among the most
high-profile cases out of the crackdown that rippled across the nation’s
third-largest city and suburbs last year. It is also the latest example
of how the Justice Department has struggled to prosecute people accused
of assaulting or hindering federal officers while protesting President
Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Defense attorneys for the activists, including onetime Democratic
congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh, said they would seek copies of
the unredacted transcripts to learn more.
“The revelations of the grand jury misconduct that led to the dismissal
of the charges is sadly not surprising,” said Abughazaleh’s defense
attorney Josh Herman. “This misguided case should have never been
brought against Kat Abughazaleh or any of her co-defendants for
exercising their protected First Amendment rights.”
In October, Abughazaleh was among six people initially charged with
conspiring to impede an officer, a felony. Prosecutors alleged they
surrounded an immigration agent’s van with other protesters at a federal
facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview, which was central to the
Trump administration’s aggressive operation.
Charges were later dropped against two of the people.
Last month, prosecutors scrapped the felony conspiracy charge altogether
amid questions about the grand jury transcripts. Prosecutor’s fresh
charging documents last month did not detail further allegations against
the activists.
[to top of second column]
|
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrest a protester at
the ICE facility in Broadview, Ill., Sept. 19, 2025. (Zubaer Khan
/Chicago Sun-Times via AP, File)
Despite objections from the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times and
other news media outlets, Perry closed part of the hearing to the
public because of the discussion of grand jury proceedings, which
are kept secret.
The others charged were Andre Martin, who was on Abughazaleh’s
campaign staff; Oak Park village trustee Brian Straw; and Michael
Rabbitt, a Democratic committeeperson. Each faced a single
misdemeanor count of forcibly impeding a federal agent.
The charges were dismissed with prejudice on Thursday, preventing
them from being refiled. Perry also floated the idea of a separate
hearing on possible sanctions for the U.S. Attorney's Office over
their actions.
The case is not the first time during the Trump administration that
prosecutors have faced scrutiny over their conduct before grand
juries.
In November, for instance, a federal judge in Virginia accused the
Justice Department of having engaged in a “disturbing pattern of
profound investigative missteps” in the process of securing an
indictment against former FBI Director James Comey.
Those problems, a magistrate judge wrote, include “fundamental
misstatements of the law” by a prosecutor to the grand jury that
indicted Comey in September, the use of potentially privileged
communications during the investigation and unexplained
irregularities in the transcript of the grand jury proceedings.
The case was later dismissed after a judge determined that the
prosecutor who filed the false statements prosecution was illegally
appointed. Comey in April was newly indicted over a social media
photo of seashells arranged on a beach that officials said
constituted a threat against Trump.
__
Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to
this report.
All contents © copyright 2026 Associated Press. All rights reserved
 |
