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The Department of Justice has opened a formal probe after a mob of anti-ICE protesters stormed a Sunday service at Cities Church in St. Paul, interrupting worship and chanting political slogans in a supposed “protest.” This was not a peaceful act of conscience but a direct assault on the sanctity of a house of worship and the rule of law, and federal investigators are now looking at possible civil rights violations.
Video footage shared by organizers shows members of Black Lives Matter Minnesota and allied activists barging into the service, shouting “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good,” a tragic name at the center of recent unrest after her fatal shooting during an ICE operation earlier this month. These actions were deliberately theatrical and meant to intimidate congregants, not to engage in any lawful form of protest.
Those protesters singled out a pastor identified as David Easterwood, whose listings on the church website appear to match court filings identifying him as the acting director of ICE’s St. Paul field office — a dual role that has inflamed passions on both sides. Easterwood has defended the difficult and dangerous work his agents have done in Minnesota in court filings, arguing crowd-control measures were needed amid rising threats to officers.
Federal authorities, along with conservative legal voices, have made clear that disrupting religious services crosses a line that invites prosecution; the DOJ has said it will pursue violations of federal law if warranted. This is a moment for the Justice Department to show that America does not tolerate political mobs treating churches like protest stages while law-abiding officials are vilified and threatened.
Let’s be plain about it: the left’s playbook of weaponizing public grievance into private intimidation cannot be allowed to stand. Patriotically defending our churches, our law enforcement, and the basic right of Americans to worship without fear is not “political repression” — it is common-sense order and decency in a time of escalating chaos.
This incident is part of a broader breakdown in civic order in Minneapolis, where tensions over immigration enforcement have repeatedly spilled into violence and legal battles over who gets to enforce the law. Recent court actions limiting DHS responses to protests only underscore the mixed signals being sent to would-be agitators, and the federal probe should be followed by actual prosecutions so that law and faith are protected from lawless thuggery.
