US officials probing Minnesota ICE protest that disrupted church service

The U.S. Department of Justice said it is investigating protesters who disrupted a Sunday service at a Minnesota church because they believe a pastor works for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Video showed protesters inside the church chanting “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good,” the woman killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis earlier this month.

Justice Department officials accuse protesters of “desecrating a place of worship” and say they will investigate them for civil rights violations. President Donald Trump called them “agitators and insurrectionists.”

Anti-ICE protests continue in state over Trump’s immigration crackdown

The Pentagon has reportedly put 1,500 troops on hold for possible deployment.

On Sunday, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi vowed to bring “the full force of federal law” against protesters who disrupted service at St. Paul’s Cities Church, neighboring Minneapolis.

Later Monday, Deputy Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said on X that the Justice Department would “continue federal prosecution in this matter.”

Protesters say one of the church’s eight pastors, David Easterwood, is a local ICE official.

Easterwood did not lead the service Sunday.

A person of the same name is identified in ACLU court records as the acting director of ICE’s St Paul field office, according to an article by the Associated Press and the Minnesota Star Tribune newspaper.

The AP also reported that he appeared alongside Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem in Minneapolis at a news conference last October.

The BBC has contacted the church for comment.

In a statement, DHS said it neither confirmed nor denied the identities of its agents because “publishing their identities put their lives and the lives of their families at risk.”

Monique Cullars-Doty, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Minnesota and one of the protest organizers, told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, that “we cannot stand by and watch people lose their way.”

In his comments on social media in the early hours of Tuesday, Trump described the actions of protesters outside the church as a “raid” that was the work of “professionals.”

He went on to write: “These are troublemakers who should be thrown in jail or kicked out of the country.”

Elsewhere in the city, protests with occasional clashes persisted at the Whipple Building in Minneapolis, where federal agents are headquartered.

A DHS spokesperson said Monday that at least 3,000 people have been arrested in Minneapolis since the deployments.

A U.S. federal judge on Friday issued an order limiting crowd control tactics that ICE agents can use against peaceful protesters in Minneapolis.

Thousands of ICE agents are in Minnesota as part of a push by the Trump administration after his campaign promise to carry out the largest deportation operation of undocumented migrants in history.

On Sunday, CBS News reported that 1,500 active-duty troops had been placed on standby for possible deployment to Minneapolis, after President Trump said he might invoke the Insurrection Act to respond to protests.

19th-century law authorizes the president to use active-duty military personnel to perform law enforcement functions in the United States.

It was last invoked in 1992, when massive riots broke out in Los Angeles following the acquittal of four white police officers after beating Rodney King, a black man.

Separately, the US Department of Justice announced Friday that it had opened an investigation into Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, both Democrats, for allegedly obstructing federal immigration operations.

Both Frey and Walz have spoken out strongly against ICE deployments in their city and state.

Anti-ICE protests have intensified there since Good, 37, a mother of three and US citizen, was shot and killed by an ICE agent while she was in her vehicle in Minneapolis on January 7.

City officials said she was killed while lawfully observing ICE activities. The Trump administration, however, called her a “domestic terrorist” and said the officer who shot her acted in self-defense.

Meanwhile, an undocumented immigrant died in custody at an ICE detention center in Texas, the third such death in 44 days, US media reports.

Victor Manuel Diaz, a 36-year-old Nicaraguan, was arrested by ICE agents earlier this month in Minneapolis.

“He died of a suspected suicide; however, the official cause of his death remains under investigation,” ICE said in a statement.

Earlier this month, Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old Cuban immigrant, died at the same facility in Texas.

Tricia McLaughlin, deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, told the Washington Post that Lunas Campos died after attempting suicide.