Federal officials said on Monday that they had arrested two more people in connection with a protest at a Minnesota church last month, an episode that has become a flashpoint in the clash over President Trump’s aggressive immigration action and First Amendment rights.
The demonstration interrupted a service last month at Cities Church in St. Paul, where an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official serves as a pastor. The Trump administration argues that the protesters and two journalists who filmed the encounter crossed the line into an attack on religious rights.
The attempts to prosecute them have alarmed free speech advocates, who see the criminal cases as an effort to suppress dissent against an immigration crackdown that has resulted in thousands of arrests, tense protests and the killing of at least two people by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis.
The latest arrests related to the Jan. 18 church protest were announced by Attorney General Pam Bondi on Monday. One of the men, Ian D. Austin, was set to make a first court appearance on Monday. Mr. Austin’s lawyer, Sarah Gad, said in an email that “Ian is a veteran who loves this country,” adding that, “For him, being here and speaking up about the American values he believes in is part of that service.”
Mr. Austin has been a frequent protester in Minnesota in recent weeks, streaming video from the demonstrations live on social media. In footage posted on Friday by the news outlet Mother Jones, he was shown being arrested by federal agents. “They’re targeting me because I had 2.5 million streams yesterday,” he is heard saying in the video.
It was not immediately clear when the other man whose arrest was announced on Monday, Jerome D. Richardson, would appear in court, or whether he had hired a lawyer.
In a video posted online over the weekend, Mr. Richardson said he was a college student originally from Minnesota who had been “an active youth leader” for several years. He said he had assisted Don Lemon, the former CNN host, in covering the protest.
Mr. Lemon was named in a nine-page indictment and made an initial court appearance last week. Mr. Austin and Mr. Richardson were the only two defendants named in the nine-person indictment who had not already made an initial appearance by Monday morning.
They were charged with a conspiracy to deprive the congregants of the church of their rights and to interfere with religious freedom in a house of worship. The indictment revived a case that had been rejected in large part by a magistrate judge earlier in January.
The protest at the church played out after two shootings involving federal agents in Minneapolis. Renee Good, a U.S. citizen, was shot and killed by an ICE agent on Jan. 7. A week later, a Venezuelan man accused of being in the country illegally and of resisting arrest was shot and wounded.
Less than a week after the demonstration, Alex Pretti, also a U.S. citizen, was shot and killed by federal agents. Autopsy results released by the county medical examiner’s office on Monday described his death as a homicide caused by multiple gunshot wounds.
The Pretti shooting is under investigation by state and federal officials. The medical examiner made no determination about whether it was justified.
Mitch Smith is a Chicago-based national correspondent for The Times, covering the Midwest and Great Plains.
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