Jan. 19 (UPI) — Federal prosecutors are investigating anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protesters who allegedly disrupted a church service in St. Paul on Sunday.
Uncorroborated videos of the incident published online show a group of protesters within the Cities Church in St. Paul. One video shows the demonstrators chanting “Justice for Renee Good.” Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was fatally shot Jan. 7 in Minneapolis by an ICE agent as she was in her car trying to leave the scene.
The demonstrators allege one of the church’s pastors serves as the head of ICE’s St. Paul field office.
Good’s death has ratcheted up already high tensions in the city between federal immigration law enforcement agents and residents amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis where thousands of ICE and Customs and Border Protection agents have been deployed for Operation Metro Surge.
Department of Justice officials were quick to denounce the protest at Cities Church, with Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division stating her office is investigating “these people desecrating a house of worship and interfering with Christian worshippers” for potential violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.
The FACE Act, signed into law in the mid-1990s, was primarily enacted to prevent protesters from obstructing abortion clinics. It also prohibits the use or threat of force to intentionally interfere with individuals exercising certain federally protected rights, including the free exercise of religious worship, in limited circumstances.
“A house of worship is not a public forum for your protest! It is a space protected from exactly such acts by federal criminal and civil laws! Nor does the First Amendment protect your pseudo journalism of disrupting a prayer service” Dhillon said in a statement on X.
She said a team of prosecutors and investigators were on the case, while adding that she has been in touch with Attorney General Pam Bondi, who vowed to prosecute any violation of federal law.
“I just spoke to the Pastor in Minnesota whose church was targeted. Attacks against law enforcement and the intimidation of Christians are being met with the full force of federal law,” Bondi said in a late Sunday statement.
“If state leaders refuse to act responsibly to prevent lawlessness, this Department of Justice will remain mobilized to prosecute federal crimes and ensure that the rule of law prevails.”
While the Trump administration is framing the protest as targeting Christians, the demonstrators allege that one of the church’s pastors works as the head of ICE’s St. Paul field office, the local Minnesota Star Tribune reported.
The pastor in question is David Easterwood, who is listed on the church’s website.
Easterwood appeared in a late October press conference alongside Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. He also is named as a defendant in a lawsuit filed Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union, alleging federal agents have violated the constitutional rights of Minnesotans through excessive force and racial profiling. Easterwood is identified in the court document as “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Field Office Director for St. Paul, Minnesota.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt added that Trump “will not tolerate the intimidation and harassment of Christians in their sacred places of worship.”
ICE on Sunday blamed Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacoby Frey, two vocal critics of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, for “whipping these mobs into a frenzy and then allowing them to run rampant.”
“We won’t be deterred,” ICE said in an online statement. “ICE isn’t going anywhere.”
City officials have called on ICE to leave Minneapolis and on residents to not be baited into confrontation with them, saying the Trump administration is seeking to stoke violence.
President Donald Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy U.S. soldiers to Minneapolis. About 1,500 active-duty service members are reportedly on standby.
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