The protest against ICE that could marginalize a generation of activists

One of the first things Nekima Levy Armstrong saw after spending the night in a Minnesota jail on federal charges was a photo of herself in handcuffs that the White House had significantly altered, giving her darker skin and making it appear that she had cried hysterically upon being arrested.

“The federal government couldn’t break me during my arrest, so they released a picture trying to portray me as broken,” Armstrong said. “Historically, it’s no different than the ways black people have been caricatured, using these images of Sambos and moms and dark skin.”

“It’s a way of dehumanizing us,” said Armstrong, a lawyer and civil rights activist who previously served as president of the Minneapolis NAACP.

Armstrong was detained after federal agents arrested her for leading what the Donald Trump administration’s top civil rights lawyer called a “demonic and ungodly” display: a demonstration that briefly disrupted a service at Cities Church in Saint Paul, where a top Midwest Immigration and Customs Enforcement official serves as pastor.

The demonstration, in which dozens of people participated, made national headlines, in part because journalist Don Lemon, a former CNN anchor, was there to broadcast live. Several waves of aggressive arrests followed as the government identified suspected protesters; 39 people, including Lemon, now face federal charges related to the incident and potentially years behind bars.

In recent weeks, as prosecutors prepare to argue that protesters violated worshipers’ religious freedom, eight of the defendants in the case spoke to News themezone about being targeted by the Trump administration. Many described treatment apparently intended to humiliate and intimidate them, including being confronted by heavily armed federal agents, detained in multi-point shackles, and forced to pose with agents for “trophy” images.

They say there is more at risk than their freedom: Even if the charges fail in court, the case shows that the Trump administration is willing to make an example of them, punishing them for using their right to protest.

“I don’t think anyone thought the federal government would turn a peaceful, nonviolent protest into federal criminal charges,” Armstrong said. “The federal government is criminalizing us for standing up for what is right.”

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The defendants in the church protest case, including two co-founders of Black Lives Matter Minnesota and a Saint Paul School Board member, represent a veteran generation of activists in the Twin Cities who have fought for racial justice for decades. The 2020 police killing of George Floyd sparked protests around the world, but by then, Twin Cities activists had been organizing around racial justice for years, including an 18-day sit-in outside a Minneapolis police station following the 2015 police killing of Jamar Clark.

Protesters at Cities Church gathered in response to a flier Armstrong posted on social media, the indictment alleges. On January 18, 11 days after ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good, protesters came to the church to denounce the fact that David Easterwood, director of Enforcement and Removal Operations for ICE’s Saint Paul field office, serves as pastor there.

“It is not in our best interest, people who were raised Christians, to have a minister who preaches the word of God… and at the same time be a leader of the Minneapolis-Saint Paul ICE, who systematically oppresses people based on race and does all these things fundamentally opposed to the teachings of the Bible and Jesus,” said Ian Austin, who was among the protesters.

Some of the protesters joined the service for a time, before Armstrong, who noted that she is an ordained reverend, intervened and announced to the congregation Easterwood’s role with ICE.

As protesters chanted, including “Justice for Renee Good!”, the church turned up the music, Armstrong recalled, apparently in an attempt to drown out their voices.

While the video shows protesters and worshipers interacting with each other, sometimes angrily, it does not appear to show any violence, nor any obvious attempts by protesters to block roads or exits from the church, as federal prosecutors allege. (Some of the defendants in the case who spoke to News themezone declined to discuss the details of the protest, citing the open criminal case.)

“I probably spent 60% of the time talking to some of the parishioners,” Austin said. “Shit, I was singing along to the hymns.”

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Some parishioners told protesters they didn’t know about Easterwood’s role with ICE, Armstrong said. It is unclear whether Easterwood was present at the time.

Easterwood is in charge of all ICE division personnel responsible for immigrant arrests and deportations in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska, he said at a news conference in October. He reiterated details of his role in a January court filing, which noted that he began working as an ICE deportation officer in 2015.

Separately, in January, Easterwood was named as a defendant in a lawsuit in which Minnesota residents represented by the American Civil Liberties Union alleged that federal agents had violated the Constitution, including by detaining people based on their race and making warrantless arrests without probable cause. (A Trump-appointed federal judge wrote earlier this month that the plaintiffs “have provided strong evidence” of unconstitutional conduct by the government.) Easterwood is still listed online as pastor of Cities Church.

A church spokesperson pointed News themezone to several statements from church leaders and their attorneys about the protest, accusing protesters of disrupting parishioners’ religious rights.

Trump officials have referred to protesters as engaging in a “coordinated attack.” They have accused protesters of committing what is known as “conspiracy against rights,” a charge that originated during Reconstruction to protect black churches from the Ku Klux Klan, and of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which has primarily been used to prosecute people who block entrances to abortion clinics, although it also includes language about religious institutions. (Last year, Trump pardoned about two dozen anti-abortion activists convicted of FACE Act violations, and Trump’s Justice Department has said it will only pursue “abortion-related” FACE Act violations in “extraordinary circumstances.”)

Prosecutors have so far presented no evidence to support the charges brought in a slim superseding indictment, which accuses protesters of engaging in “acts of oppression, intimidation, threats, interference and physical obstruction.”

“They’re lying about this whole damn thing,” Armstrong said, noting that several videos exist that contradict the government’s claims.

Austin, who deployed to Afghanistan six times as an Army Ranger, said he was “defending those same things I thought I was going to war for.”

“My own government is charging me with federal crimes for having the audacity to stand up and say, ‘Hey, stop oppressing people because of their race,’” he said.

William Kelly, an Army veteran who deployed to Iraq in 2008, was also at the protest. Kelly goes by DaWokeFarmer on social media and has created an online profile as someone who loudly berates federal agents on the streets.

“We wanted the entire country to talk about the fact that this regional director of ICE is also a pastor, [and] “That’s contradictory, that’s the opposite of Christianity,” he said. “And then yes, I raised my voice.”

“Honestly, I was more relaxed compared to what I normally do,” he said.

Monique Cullars-Doty, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Minnesota and another of the Cities Church defendants, said she believed Easterwood was lost in a religious transgression, “overtaken by a fault,” as she put it.

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The responsibility of enforcing the law is personal to Cullars-Doty. His nephew, Marcus Golden, was shot and killed by Saint Paul police in 2015, resulting in what Cullars-Doty describes as an extensive police cover-up and ultimately a $1.3 million settlement for his family.

“You’re either going to worship and serve God, or you’re going to serve money and man in this administration. But you can’t do both and call yourself a Christian,” he said.

After about 25 minutes of chanting inside the church, and after most of the parishioners had left, the protesters filed out.

Many of the arrests of Church of the Cities protesters seemed designed for spectacle and humiliation.

Armstrong was staying at a hotel near the federal courthouse in Minneapolis when, according to his lawyer, Minnesota’s top federal prosecutor, Daniel Rosen, agreed to allow him to surrender to U.S. Marshals at the federal courthouse, only to reverse course, insisting that Armstrong would have to be arrested at his hotel. Only then were agents able to record the images that would become a racist White House meme.

On February 27, Drew Edwards, who demonstrated alongside Armstrong, heard footsteps outside his window when he woke up at 6 a.m. to meditate.

When Edwards went to see what was happening, federal agents pointed long guns and flashlights in his face and told him to go to the front door. Before he could open it, they knocked him down with a battering ram, handcuffed him, and took him away without giving him a chance to recover his pants or shoes.

It would be hours before anyone offered him pants, he said, and in the meantime, several agents took photos of him at the Whipple federal building, an ICE facility in the Twin Cities and a central detention point for immigrants taken into ICE custody.

“There was no reason to break down my door,” he told News themezone, except to “put myself in danger, be destructive and try to intimidate.”

Brixton Hughes, the nom de guerre of David Okar, a freelance journalist who covers justice activity. to racial in the Twin Cities, they also hit his door with a battering ram. He was in his basement and responded to officers’ commands to go upstairs only to encounter “a guy at the top of the stairs with a gun literally pointed at my head.”

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Authorities confiscated detainees’ cell phones and sometimes refused to show warrant documentation. Instead of taking them directly to federal court, they first took most of them to the Whipple Building. They took DNA samples as well as mugshots. They chained the detainees by the wrists, waist and feet.

Cheryl Persigehl, a semi-retired executive coach who has been active in racial justice protests since the police killing of Philando Castile 10 years ago, said that after several hours in the Whipple Building, U.S. Marshals removed her handcuffs as soon as she was transferred to their custody at the federal courthouse in Saint Paul.

“The first comment I heard from one of the federal marshals was, ‘This is stupid, they could have sent you a subpoena,’” Persigehl said. (Given the nature of the case, it was “very unusual” that protesters facing charges were not allowed to simply turn themselves in, according to their attorney, Amy Conners.)

Officers appeared to want to make an example of protesters and captured photos and videos of them after their arrests, several people told News themezone.

“There were a lot of cell phones, officers taking pictures and videos of us,” Persigehl said. Each of the detainees was accompanied by an agent, he said, and they were made to pose for photographs with those agents “as if we were trophies.”

He recalled that an officer who appeared to be in charge told the others, “Make sure you have a visible badge, an ID, as an officer, because we’re taking pictures.”

“They know this case is not going to stick,” Kelly said. “They just want to intimidate us, they want to scare us, they want to scare other people who might protest ICE leadership.”

While in federal custody, he said, agents photographed him “like the catch of the day.”

Trahern Crews, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Minnesota with Cullars-Doty, said he was photographed with two officers holding each of his arms and facing away from the camera, a pose that has become the Homeland Security standard.

“It didn’t seem like it was about justice,” he said. “It seemed like it was humiliation and propaganda.”

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Like Cullars-Doty, Crews has personal experience with state violence. His nephew, Hardel Sherrell, died in the Beltrami County Jail in 2018 after spending days begging for medical care he never received. Michelle Skroch, a nurse at the jail, now faces charges of involuntary manslaughter and neglect.

Sitting, chained, in the Whipple Federal Building near historic Fort Snelling, Crews thought about Dred and Harriet Scott, who were held in captivity as slaves nearly 200 years earlier. in the fort The Supreme Court’s denial of Dred Scott’s humanity (of his right to sue for his freedom) set the stage for the Civil War.

“I thought, ‘Wow, I’m here chained up at Fort Snelling right now, where Dred and Harriet Scott were held captive,’” Crews said. “But I knew I hadn’t hurt anyone. I knew what was happening to me was unfair.”

According to the Justice Department, even the suggestion that “proper procedures were not followed” during the arrests of church protesters is “false,” spokesperson Natalie Baldassarre told News themezone in an email.

The case against the protesters presents an uphill battle for the Justice Department. Law professors and legal analysts have referred to the charges as “exaggerate” and “overreaching at best.”

In the advance arrest warrants, Judge Douglas L. Micko literally crossed outside the FACE Act charge in pen, writing in capital letters, “WITHOUT PROBABLE CAUSE.” Micko too refused issue warrants for five other potential defendants; A few days later, prosecutors secured a grand jury indictment for the targets of his initial arrest.

On Friday, Micko called out federal prosecutors who are dragging their feet in the discovery process.

“So, here we are, months into a case that the government had an intense appetite to pursue, but can’t seem to keep up with when it comes to discovery obligations,” the judge wrote. “This is unacceptable.”

“Conspiracy against rights” The charges can result in up to 10 years in prison. And someone convicted of his first FACE Law rape You can face between six months and 10 years behind bars, with the upper limit applying “if bodily injury occurs” as a result of someone’s actions.

The substitute accusation alleges that the actions of the 39 defendants “resulted in bodily injury to one of the parishioners.” It does not specify more, but the statement of a federal agent sworn declaration alleges that an unidentified person slipped and broke his arm while leaving the church.

All of the defendants who have been indicted have pleaded not guilty and some are fighting the charges before they go to trial. Last month, Austin introduced a motion dismiss the charges against you for “failure to file a claim”; Even if everything alleged about his actions within the church is true, his attorney argued, it does not constitute a federal crime.

The federal charges risk sidelining dozens of seasoned activists, who now face possible custody during their criminal case if they have a run-in with the law, which is not unlikely in a city that is still home to hundreds of federal agents.

“I’m driving and controlling my speed constantly,” Cullars-Doty said.

Hughes said he was now more hesitant to continue his work documenting protest movements in the Twin Cities.

“If I go somewhere to cover something and there’s likely to be police action, I’m much more aware of that,” he said. “Normally, I’d be right there in the middle of it, but now I tell myself, if that kind of shit hits you when you’re here, just walk away, because you don’t need it. So, yeah, I hate to admit it, but it’s given me that fear.”

Crews said he felt the accusation was intended to have a chilling effect on local activists.

“It just adds stress to the leadership here,” he said. “We have very effective grassroots leadership here, and I think this impeachment is a way to silence and curb that leadership, especially in an election year.”

Still, several defendants conveyed a sense of resolve in the face of the charges.

Austin, who has long struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder since his time in Afghanistan, said joining the protests in the Twin Cities felt like a realization of the decade of work he has done on himself. “I’ve had a lot of veterans reach out and say, ‘Hey, you’re giving me the freedom to act myself,’” he said.

Cullars-Doty said the protest was “a just action, it was just, it was necessary.” When federal agents came to her door at 4:30 a.m., saying they had a warrant for her arrest, she recalled feeling “a blanket of peace.”

“I was so peaceful that I didn’t hear my dog ​​barking. I guess they were banging on the door, ringing the doorbell… I didn’t hear any of that,” she recalled.

Inside the federal agents’ van, he began to praise God.

“It’s in God’s hands. Worst case scenario? Where can I go that he’s not there?” she said.

Even if I were convicted, “I would have a prison ministry,” Cullars-Doty added. “But I think we will win.”

Armstrong said the government was engaged in a retaliatory process to “punish dissent and try to silence our voices.”

“We know we are on the right side of history,” he said.