Anti-ICE protesters invaded a church in Minnesota on Sunday, accusing the pastor of being a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent.
In a live YouTube video recorded by former CNN host Don Lemon, protesters were seen storming into Cities Church in Minneapolis. Protesters were heard chanting, “Hands up, Don’t shoot,” and “ICE out.”
Lemon was heard clarifying on video that he was “not part of the group” and that he was just there “photographing.”
Lemon explained that, according to the protesters, they had allegedly discovered “one of the pastors” is a “member of ICE.”
Jonathan Parnell, the lead pastor, described the protest as “unacceptable,” adding that it is “shameful to interrupt a public gathering of Christians in worship.”
According to Mediaite, while some “church attendees were irate with the intrusion and yelled at the protesters to beat it,” the former CNN host “defended the protesters”:
A number of church attendees were irate with the intrusion and yelled at the protesters to beat it. Lemon defended the protesters — saying they were simply exercising their Constitutional rights to protest.
“This is what the First Amendment is about, the freedom to protest,” Lemon told viewers. “I’m sure people here don’t like it, but protests are not comfortable.”
Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Harmeet Dhillon revealed that an investigation had been launched into “the potential violations of the federal FACE Act.”
“The @CivilRights in investigating the potential violations of the federal FACE Act by these people desecrating a house of worship and interfering with Christian worshippers,” Dhillon wrote in a post on X.
Breitbart News’s Katherine Hamilton has previously reported that the FACE Act, which was passed in 1994, prohibits “violent, threatening, damaging, and obstructive conduct intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with the right to seek, obtain, or provide reproductive health services.”
“The act was written to equally protect abortion clinics, pro-life pregnancy resource centers, and churches,” Breitbart News reported.
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