Demonstrators disrupted a service at Cities Church after learning one of the pastors also works as the acting director of ICE’s field office in St. Paul.
Protest organizers said the demonstration was justified as they called attention to David Easterwood, a pastor at the church who also works as a local leader of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Easterwood is named in an ACLU lawsuit filed in December that alleges ICE agents are racial profiling and arresting people without warrants or probable cause.
“This cannot be a house of God while harboring someone directing ICE agents to wreak havoc on our community,” one protester told former CNN host Don Lemon during a livestream. “I am a reverend on top of being a lawyer and an activist, so I come here in the power of the almighty God.”
The Civil Rights department of the Justice Department announced that it would be conducting an investigation into what happened.
The website of St. Paul-based Cities Church lists David Easterwood as a pastor, and his personal information appears to match that of the David Easterwood identified in court filings as the acting director of the ICE St. Paul field office. Easterwood appeared alongside DHS Secretary Kristi Noem at a Minneapolis press conference last October.
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However, the Pentagon has ordered about 1,500 troops to prepare for a possible deployment to Minnesota, as the state reels from intensifying anti-ICE protests after the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good.
The FBI has also asked agents based in offices around the United States to voluntarily travel to Minnesota to assist federal agencies there.