Feds Forced to Drop Case Against “Broadview Six” Anti-ICE Protesters
Charges against the other “Broadview Six” protesters were dropped Thursday, a victory for everyone who protested ICE activities under the Trump administration.
The six demonstrators were hit with criminal conspiracy charges carry a maximum sentence of six years in prison after he surrounded an ICE agent’s car in the Chicago suburb of Broadview in September in an attempt to slow her down. It was alleged that protesters “pushed, scratched and otherwise damaged” the vehicle, according to At Chicago Sun-Times. But like many charges brought by the federal government against anti-ICE protesters, they did not hold up in court.
Government first abandoned charges against two of the protesters, Catherine Sharp and Joselyn Walsh. Then he dismissed conspiracy charges against the other four — Brian Straw, Michael Rabbitt, Andre Martin and former congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh — and instead attempted to convict them of one misdemeanor each for obstructing a federal agent.
In the end, the administration couldn’t even do that. Chicago’s top federal prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros, abandoned The charges were filed before U.S. District Judge April Perry, meaning the case cannot be refiled in the future.
Boutros remained petty until the end. He called the protesters’ actions “unacceptable in a civilized society,” adding: “It is by the grace of God that this officer was moving at three kilometers per hour.” »
Perry was not impressed. “You significantly undermine your mea culpa by sustaining the accusations and continuing to vilify these particular defendants,” she told Boutros.
Boutros had already annoyed the judge once before, when his aides took transcripts of themselves explaining conspiracy laws to the grand jury, and then apparently redacted some of the transcripts when Perry requested them. She discussed it with them in a private audience. Boutros then insisted to Perry that “no one acted with the intent to mislead your honor.”
ICE arrived in Chicago as part of Operation Midway Blitz, a deportation campaign that began in September 2025, months before Operation Metro Surge took over Minneapolis. The campaign gave rise to demonstrations, arrests and fatal shot of a resident, Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez.
