When Nekima Levy Armstrong took a seat in church Sunday, it wasn’t at her usual congregation. She had come to Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, where the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s local field office, she had learned, was also one of the pastors.
Roughly two dozen protesters had joined her to confront church leaders about pastor David Easterwood and his role with the ICE operation that has flooded the Twin Cities with federal agents, who for weeks have dragged people from their cars, stopped U.S. citizens, broke down doors and shot two people, killing one.
The roughly 25-minute protest, much of it captured in cellphone video, has become the latest flash point in a nationwide debate over the meaning of “sanctuary,” and what freedom, justice and civility look like as Americans confront a new reality in which armed federal agents are increasingly training their focus — and their force — on U.S. cities.
Levy Armstrong said her group’s demonstration, now the subject of a Justice Department investigation, was nonviolent, lawful and morally necessary. Easterwood, she said in an interview Monday, came to her attention as a defendant in a December lawsuit that accuses him and other ICE officials of having “pepper sprayed, violently subdued, and aimed assault rifles at protesters and observers, and even followed observers home to scare them in a tactic lifted straight from the mafia,” court documents say. Levy Armstrong, a lawyer, ordained reverend and longtime Twin Cities civil rights activist, said she was shocked when she saw videos of him preaching.
“I don’t understand how as a pastor, he thinks that that’s acceptable,” Levy Armstrong said.
In a sworn declaration filed in response to the lawsuit, Easterwood denied many of the plaintiffs claims.
“I did not witness, nor am I aware of, any ICE employee knowingly targeting or retaliating against peaceful protesters or legal observers with less lethal munitions and/or crowd control devices for exercising their First Amendment rights,” Easterwood wrote.
Attempts to reach Easterwood were unsuccessful, and calls to Cities Church went unanswered Monday.
In announcing the Justice Department’s investigation of Sunday’s events at Cities Church, Harmeet K. Dhillon, the Trump administration’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, characterized the protest’s participants as “desecrating a house of worship and interfering with Christian worshippers.”
The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Taking a protest to a pulpit has also rankled some on the religious right, with groups like the North American Mission Board, an entity of the Southern Baptist Convention, decrying the protest as “lawless harassment.”
“No cause — political or otherwise — justifies the desecration of a sacred space or the intimidation and trauma inflicted on families gathered peacefully in the house of God,” Kevin Ezell, the group’s president, said in a statement.
Other faith leaders have said it’s their clerical duty to stand up for the most vulnerable, including immigrants being targeted by the Trump administration’s enforcement efforts. In a homily last week, Minnesota Rt. Rev. Craig Loya, an Episcopal bishop, said fellow Christians should “make like our ancient ancestors, and turn the world upside down by mobilizing for love.”
“We are going to disrupt with Jesus’ hope. We are going agitate with Jesus’ love,” Loya said in the Jan. 14 message.
Loya’s message, Levy Armstrong said, echoes her belief that anti-ICE protests align with Christian principles. She also acknowledged that there’s long been a schism in American Christianity when it comes to civil rights.
“At the core, Christianity, if you’re genuine about it, is the call to love thy neighbor as you love yourself,” she said. “If you compare anyone’s actions and behaviors against that scripture, that will tell you who is on the right side of history and who is on the wrong side of history.”
Levy Armstrong said protesters entered the church, sang and prayed with the congregation until Jonathan Parnell, the lead pastor, finished his prayer: “Lord, please chasten us and help us get our house in order,” Levy Armstrong recalled him saying.
She stood to ask Parnell about Easterwood, who was not present at the service Sunday, and his role with ICE. Levy Armstrong said Parnell would not engage with her questions and instead turned up the music to drown out the chants of protesters.
Efforts to contact Parnell were not successful. In an interview during the protest, he told journalist Don Lemon that it was “shameful” of the protesters to interrupt a public gathering of worshiping Christians.
“Our church had gathered for worship, which we do every Sunday. We asked them to leave, and they obviously have not left,” Parnell said.
As protesters shouted “ICE out” and “Justice for Renée Good,” whose shooting death by a federal agent in Minneapolis has galvanized the anti-ICE movement in Minnesota, some congregants remained seated while others began to leave, according to video footage of the protest.
“While I agree with everybody’s freedom to protest, these people have come into our house and they’ve interrupted our worship,” said a congregant who spoke to Lemonbut was not identified by name. “If I was to break into any of their houses uninvited, I would be kicked out.”
Outside, protesters could be seen yelling, “your pastor is an ICE director” and telling them to find a better church. Levy Armstrong described the event as “effective” and said she noticed dialogue between some of the protesters and congregants.
“Some people were asking questions, wanting to know what was happening, saying they didn’t know [about Easterwood],” Levy Armstrong said.
The Justice Department has seized on the argument that protesting in a house of worship is tantamount to religious suppression of the affected worshipers. Dhillon, the head of the agency’s Civil Rights Division, said on X that the incident will be investigated as a potential violation of the federal FACE Act. The 1994 law has been used most commonly to limit protesters from physically blocking people trying to obtain reproductive health services such as abortion.
The FACE Act, which stands for Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances, also forbids interfering with a person’s First Amendment right to religious freedom at a place of worship “by force, threat of force or physical obstruction.” It carries the disclaimer that the act should not be construed to prohibit “expressive conduct” such as peaceful picketing or protesting.
Speaking out inside a church would not seem to constitute physical obstruction or use of force, unless congregants were barred from taking Communion or some other religious activity, said David Cole, a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University and a former legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union.
“If they are merely expressing their views, without obstructing access to the church, the First Amendment would protect them, just as it protects those who protest outside abortion clinics without obstructing access or intimidating patients,” Cole said. “But if they engaged in physical obstruction, the First Amendment does not protect that.”
The Department of Homeland Security has touted its efforts in Minneapolis as a victory for public safety, with Homeland Secretary Kristi L. Noem claiming Monday that in the past six weeks, agents in the Twin Cities had arrested 3,000 “criminal illegal aliens.” Her statement on X said the Trump administration had arrested 10,000 in Minneapolis overall, though the post does not specify a timeline.
A spokesperson for DHS said that the “more than 10,000 arrests” had occurred across Minnesota since the start of the second Trump administration a year ago. The official, who did not identify themselves by name, did not address questions seeking to understand whether Noem’s tally includes temporary protected status revocations or immigrants held on ICE detainers.
Residents of the Twin Cities have broadly denounced the Trump administration’s efforts, and protests that have intensified since Jan. 7, when ICE officer Jonathan Ross fatally shot Good, a 37-year-old American citizen. Good’s partner was protesting ICE officers nearby in the moments before the shooting. A week later, an ICE officer shot an undocumented Venezuelan man in the leg during an arrest.
Levy Armstrong said it was hypocritical of the administration, and groups like the Southern Baptist Convention, to condemn protesters for disrupting a church service when immigration officials have disrupted so many aspects of daily life of Twin Cities residents — including churchgoing by immigrant residents who are afraid to leave the house.
“They want to act as if they’re upset about peaceful protesters coming into a church to try to engage in meaningful dialogue. But the flip side is that the Trump administration has removed guard rails around ICE being able to come into churches,” Levy Armstrong said. “Either the church is a sanctuary or it’s not.”
The post Anti-ICE protest at Minnesota church is latest flash point over Trump’s crackdown appeared first on Washington Post.
