St Paul pastor denounces anti-ICE agitators who disrupted church service, says 'we're here to worship Jesus'
Ex-CNN host Don Lemon followed a crowd of agitators into Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, as they interrupted a service to protest Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in a video the former anchor posted on Sunday, and spoke to a pastor at the church who called the actions "shameful."
Lemon spoke to members of the anti-ICE crowd, as well as members of the church. The former CNN host asked the pastor what he thought of the interruption. Lemon appeared to be speaking to Cities Church lead pastor Jonathan Parnell, as per an image on the church's website.
"This is unacceptable, it's shameful. It's shameful to interrupt a public gathering of Christians in worship," the pastor responded. "I have to take care of my flock."
Lemon replied that there is a constitutional right to freedom of speech and freedom to assemble and protest.
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"We're here to worship, we're here to worship Jesus, because that's the hope of these cities, that's the hope of the world, is Jesus Christ," the pastor responded. "We're here to worship Jesus. That's why we're here, that's what we're about."
Lemon asked the pastor if he tried to talk to the anti-ICE agitators, and the pastor said no one had been willing to speak to him.
The pastor then asked Lemon to leave the church.
Cities Church did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
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Harmeet Dhillon, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the Department of Justice, posted on X that the DOJ was "investigating the potential violations of the federal FACE Act by these people desecrating a house of worship and interfering with Christian worshippers."
The FACE Act makes it a federal crime, with potentially steep fines and jail time, to use or threaten to use force to "injure, intimidate, or interfere" with a person seeking reproductive health services, or with a person lawfully trying to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship. It also prohibits intentional property damage to a facility providing reproductive health services or a place of religious worship.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said she spoke to the pastor at Cities Church.
"I just spoke to the pastor in Minnesota whose church was targeted. Attacks against law enforcement and the intimidation of Christians are being met with the full force of federal law," Bondi said in a statement.
Lemon responded to Dhillon’s post on Instagram, saying he had no affiliation with the protest and was "just practicing journalism."
"So, I have no affiliation to that organization. I didn't even know they were going to this church until we followed them there. We were there chronicling protests. Once the protest started in the church, we did an act of journalism, which was report on it and talk to the people who were involved, which included a pastor and members of the church and members of the organization. That's it. It’s called journalism. First Amendment, all that stuff, for all of you people who believe in the First Amendment, absolutists, there you go," he said.
"So why don't you talk to the actual person who is in charge of the organization and whose idea was to have the protests at the church before you start blaming me for stuff for which you have no idea? Thank you for your attention to this matter," he continued.
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Lemon also spoke to Nekima Levy Armstrong, an activist and attorney present at the demonstration, who described the protest, dubbed "Operation Pull Up," as a "clandestine" operation to disrupt business as usual at key locations.
Armstrong claimed during the interview that one of the church pastors, David Easterwood, was an acting field director for ICE in St. Paul. ABC News reported a person by that name is listed on court filings as the field director at the St. Paul office and Cities Church does list a David Easterwood as one of its pastors.
ICE referred Fox News Digital to a statement it posted to X on Sunday: "Agitators aren’t just targeting our officers. Now they’re targeting churches, too. They're going from hotel to hotel, church to church, hunting for federal law enforcement who are risking their lives to protect Americans. Tim Walz and Jacob Frey are responsible for whipping these mobs into a frenzy and then allowing them to run rampant. We won’t be deterred. ICE isn’t going anywhere."