A federal grand jury in Chicago was dismissed after its members refused to indict six people arrested during an immigration enforcement operation, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Sheri Mecklenburg, who appeared before the panel.
Mecklenburg, a near two-decade veteran of the Department of Justice, told the grand jurors on Oct. 9, 2025, that she had asked her superiors if she could wait to present “a very interesting case” to them because of the bond she had developed with the group over their 18 months of service, which began in June 2024. The panel had spent hundreds of hours hearing evidence brought by various federal prosecutors and signing off on indictments.
The case involved six people arrested during an immigration enforcement operation in Broadview, Illinois, a suburb west of Chicago. The arrests occurred in early October 2025, days after a marked escalation in the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz” mass deportation campaign — including the shooting of a U.S. citizen by a federal immigration agent and the deployment of the National Guard to Chicago.
The grand jurors disagreed with the government’s case against the six defendants, who became known as the “Broadview Six.” After the disagreement, the panel was dismissed.
The dismissal comes amid a series of high-profile cases in which federal grand juries have pushed back against prosecutors in immigration-related matters. In February, a Texas grand jury rejected indictments in the fatal shooting of a man by an immigration agent. The Chicago case adds to a growing pattern of friction between citizens called to serve on grand juries and federal prosecutors pursuing cases tied to the administration’s immigration enforcement priorities.
U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Andrew Boutros has previously addressed grand jury independence in the context of immigration cases. In early June, Boutros said he personally addressed a grand jury before an immigration protest indictment, according to prior reporting.
The “Broadview Six” case is the latest in a series of legal battles stemming from the administration’s immigration crackdown. MSI previously reported that federal prosecutors dropped charges against activists in a separate Chicago immigration crackdown in May.