Federal prosecutors on Wednesday moved to dismiss assault charges against a married couple who were recently arrested while protesting in front of a Chicago-area ICE detention center, following a grand jury's refusal to prosecute them, according to the protesters' attorneys and court filings.

A prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois asked a district court to dismiss the criminal complaint against Ray Collins and Jocelyn Robledo, who were arrested after a confrontation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in front of an immigration detention center in Broadview, Illinois, in Chicago's west outskirts, on the night of Sept. 27.

Richard S. Kling, an attorney and Chicago-Kent College of Law clinical professor representing Collins, said the prosecutors' motion signals that the grand jury refused to indict Collins and Robledo, who according the complaint refused to comply with federal officers' orders during the protest. Kling said both defendants have been released.

According to the complaint, as law enforcement agents attempted to extend the perimeter around the detention facility, asking members of the crowd to move back, Collins and Robledo were among a "few protesters" who refused to comply.

Alex Garcia-Ortiz, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives who assisted immigration enforcement operations that day, said in an affidavit that he did not see Collins and Robledo getting into physical contact with law enforcement officers. According to an account of the events provided by other officers whom Garcia-Ortiz said were present, Robledo pushed back after being pushed by one of the agents, "causing a struggle."

Officers arrested Robledo after seeing she was carrying a gun in a band around her waist, the complaint says.

Speaking to Law360, however, Kling provided a different narrative as he recounted the incident from Collins' perspective.

"His wife got grabbed by one of the ICE agents and thrown up against a wall," Kling said. "He essentially ran over to say, 'What are you doing to my wife?' They were both then arrested and charged with assault."

After officers apprehended Collins and Robledo, Kling said, they saw each of them was carrying a handgun. The attorney said the defendants both had a license to carry, and that their firearms were never brandished or shown. He pointed out that the criminal complaint only mentioned assault.

Robledo is represented by an attorney with the Federal Defender Program for the Northern District of Illinois.

"The gun had nothing whatsoever to do with the reason [Collins] was arrested," Kling said. "I'm gratified to see that the citizens of the Northern District of Illinois, number one stood up for the right of the First Amendment, and number two are tired of putting up with the storm trooper-type tactics on the streets of the city of Chicago and its suburbs."

ICE did not return a request for comment on Wednesday.

The arrests of Collins and Robledo provide a look into some of the ongoing tensions at detention centers run by ICE across the country amid President Donald Trump's broad crackdown on noncitizens.

Immigration detention facilities across the United States have been the sites of increased protests since Trump unleashed an aggressive deportation campaign aiming to remove millions of noncitizens from the country.

Detention of immigrants has nearly doubled compared to the same period last year, leading to cramped and unsanitary conditions in several detention facilities. Detainees and advocates have reported "degrading" conditions, including insufficient food, exposure to the elements, and poor sanitation at some of the sites.

Some individuals have been forced to sleep on concrete floors or near toilets for days. Inadequate and insufficient medical care for detainees, as well as a lack of access to legal representation, have also been widely reported.

About 72% of immigrants detained have no criminal records, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research center at Syracuse University tracking government statistics.

The detention center in Broadview has been the site of demonstrations since the summer, when people began turning out to protest "inhumane conditions" and demand that the facility be closed, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which has described the protests as largely "peaceful."

Trump has called protesters gathering outside ICE facilities "terrorists" and stoked tensions by deploying the National Guard to several Democrat-led cities, including Chicago, over the objections of the governor of Illinois and the city's mayor, with the stated of goals of fighting what he has described as out-of-control crime and protecting immigration enforcement agents.

Citing what the administration described as a sharp rise in attacks against ICE agents, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered federal law enforcement agencies to "direct all necessary officers and agents to defend ICE facilities and personnel whenever and wherever they come under attack," in Chicago and elsewhere, in a Sept. 29 memo.

The memo directed officers to "arrest every person suspected of threatening or assaulting a federal law enforcement officer or interfering with federal law enforcement operations," and told federal prosecutors to charge the arrestees with the "highest provable offense available under the law."

On Monday, on behalf of members of the press and a group of protesters, the ACLU filed a lawsuit asking an Illinois federal court to prevent federal agents from using tear gas, rubber bullets, pepper-balls, flash grenades and engaging in other "disproportionate tactics" against protesters.

"Never in modern times has the federal government undermined bedrock constitutional protections on this scale, or usurped states' police power by directing federal agents to carry out an illegal mission against the people for the government's own benefit," the complaint says.

--Editing by Marygrace Anderson.