How An Anti-ICE Church Protest Became Fodder For Trump's Propaganda Machine

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 altered significantly, giving her darker skin and making it seem as though she had wept hysterically upon being arrested.

“The federal government could not break me during my arrest, so they put out an image attempting to portray me as being broken,” Armstrong said. “Historically, it’s not unlike the ways in which Black people have been caricaturized, using these images of Sambos and mammies and darkened skin.”

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“It’s a way of dehumanizing us,” said Armstrong, a civil rights attorney and 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 attorney called a “demonic and godless” display: a demonstration that briefly interrupted a service at Cities Church in Saint Paul, where one of the Midwest’s top Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials serves as a pastor.

The demonstration, which involved dozens of people, made national headlines, partially because journalist Don Lemon, a former CNN anchor, was there to  livestream. Several waves of aggressive arrests followed as the government identified alleged 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 the protesters violated congregants’ religious liberty, eight of the defendants in the case spoke to HuffPost about being targeted by the Trump administration. Many described treatment seemingly intended to humiliate and intimidate them, including being confronted by heavily armed federal agents, detained in multipoint shackles, and made to pose with agents for “trophy” images.

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They say there’s more at risk than their liberty: 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 nonviolent, peaceful protest into federal criminal charges,” Armstrong said. “We’re being criminalized by the federal government for standing up for what is right.”

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 going back decades. The police murder of George Floyd in 2020 led to protests across the world — but by then, activists in the Twin Cities had been organizing around racial justice for years, including with an 18-day occupation outside a Minneapolis police precinct following the 2015 police killing of Jamar Clark.

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

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“It doesn’t add up to us, people who were raised Christian, to have a minister preaching the word of God... while also being a leader of Minneapolis-Saint Paul ICE, which is systematically oppressing people by race, and doing all of 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 while, before Armstrong, who noted she is an ordained reverend, interjected and announced Easterwood’s role with ICE to the congregation.

As the protesters launched into chants, including “Justice for Renee Good!,” the church turned the music up, Armstrong recalled, seemingly an attempt to drown out their voices.

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

“I probably spent 60% of the time having conversations with some of the churchgoers,” Austin said. “****, I was singing along with the hymns.”

Some congregants told the protesters they hadn’t known about Easterwood’s role with ICE, Armstrong said. It’s not clear if Easterwood was present at the time.

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

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

A spokesperson for the church pointed HuffPost to several statements from church leaders and their lawyers regarding the protest, accusing the protesters of disrupting congregants’ religious rights.

Trump officials have referred to the protesters as engaging in a “coordinated attack.” They have charged the protesters with committing what’s known as “conspiracy against rights,” a charge that originated during Reconstruction to protect Black churches from the Ku Klux Klan, and with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which has primarily been used to prosecute people who block abortion clinic entrances, though it also includes language about religious institutions. (Last year, Trump pardoned some 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 not laid out evidence to support the charges filed in a sparse superseding indictment, which accuses the protesters of engaging in “acts of oppression, intimidation, threats, interference, and physical obstruction.”

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“They’re lying about the whole **** 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 “standing up for those very same things that I thought I was going to war for.”

“I’m being charged by my own government with federal felonies for having the audacity to stand up and say, ‘Hey, stop ******* oppressing people by 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 built an online profile as someone who loudly tells off federal agents on the streets.

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

“Honestly, I was toned down compared to what I normally do,” he said.

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

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Accountability for law enforcement is personal for Cullars-Doty. Her 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 millionsettlement for his family.

“Either you’re 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,” she said.

After about 25 minutes of chanting inside the church, and after most congregants had left, the demonstrators filed outside.

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

Armstrong was staying at a hotel near the federal courthouse in Minneapolis when, according to her attorney, the top federal prosecutor in Minnesota, Daniel Rosen, agreed to allow her to turn herself in to U.S. marshals at the federal courthouse — only to reverse course, insisting Armstrong would have to be arrested at her hotel. It was only then that agents were able to record the footage that would become a racist White House meme.

On Feb. 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, telling him to go to the front door. Before he could open it, they knocked it down with a battering ram, handcuffing him and taking him away without giving him the chance to retrieve 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, a hub for ICE in the Twin Cities and a central detention point for immigrants taken into ICE custody.

“There was no reason to knock my door down,” he told HuffPost, except “to put me in danger, to be destructive, and to try to intimidate.”

Brixton Hughes — the nom de guerre of David Okar, an independent journalist who covers racial justice activity in the Twin Cities — also had his door knocked in with a battering ram. He was in his basement and responded to officers’ orders to climb the stairs only to encounter “a guy at the top of the stairs with a gun pointed, literally, at my head.”

Authorities seized detainees’ cell phones and sometimes refused to show warrant paperwork. Rather than take them directly to federal court, they first brought most of them to the Whipple building. They took DNA swabs in addition to mug shots. They shackled the detainees at their wrists, waists 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 at 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 ********, they could have just sent you a summons,’” Persigehl said. (Given the nature of the case, it was “highly unusual” that protesters facing charges weren’t simply allowed to turn themselves in, according to her lawyer, Amy Conners.)

Agents seemed to want to make examples of the protesters, and captured photos and videos of them after their arrests, several people told HuffPost.

“There were a lot of cell phones, agents taking photos and video of us,” Persigehl said. Detainees were each chaperoned by an agent, she said, and were made to pose for photos with those agents “like we were trophies.”

She recalled one agent who seemed to be in charge telling the others, “Be sure that you are wearing visible insignia, identification, as an agent, because we’re taking photos.”

“They know that this case isn’t going to hold,” Kelly said. “They just want to intimidate us, they want to scare us, they want to scare other people who might protest against ICE leadership.”

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

Trahern Crews, who co-founded Black Lives Matter Minnesota with Cullars-Doty, said he was photographed as two agents held each of his arms and turned their backs to 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 about humiliation and propaganda.”

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 in the jail, now faces felony manslaughter and neglect charges.

Sitting, shackled, in the Whipple federal building near Historic Fort Snelling, Crews thought of Dred and Harriet Scott, who were held in ******* as enslaved people nearly 200 years earlierat the fort. The Supreme Court’s denial of Dred Scott’s humanity — of his right to sue for his freedom — laid the groundwork for the Civil War.

“I was like, ‘Wow, I’m here in chains at Fort Snelling right now, where Dred and Harriet Scott were in *******,’” Crews said. “But I knew I didn’t harm anybody. I knew that what was happening to me was unjust.”

According to the Justice Department, even the suggestion that “proper procedures were not followed” during the church protesters’ arrests is “false,” spokesperson Natalie Baldassarre told HuffPost 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 “overkill” and “overreach at best.” 

On early arrest warrants, Magistrate Judge Douglas L. Micko literally crossedout the FACE Act charge in pen, writing in block letters, “NO PROBABLE CAUSE.” Micko also refused to issue warrants for five other would-be defendants; a few days later, prosecutors secured a grand jury indictment for their initial arrest targets. 

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

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

“Conspiracy against rights” charges can result in up to 10 years in prison. And someone convicted of their first FACE Act violation can face anywhere from six months to 10 years behind bars, with the upper limit applying “if bodily injury results” from someone’s actions.

The superseding indictment alleges that the actions of the 39 defendants “resulted in a bodily injury to one of the congregants.” It does not specify further, but a federal agent’s affidavit alleges that one unidentified person slipped and broke her arm while exiting the church. 

All of the defendants who’ve been arraigned have pleaded not guilty, and some are fighting the charges before they reach trial. Last month, Austin filed a motion to dismiss the charges against him for “failure to state a claim” — even if everything alleged about his actions inside the church is true, his attorney argued, it doesn’t amount to a federal offense. 

The federal charges risk sidelining dozens of seasoned activists, who now face potential custody during their criminal case if they have a run-in with the law — which isn’t unlikely in a city still hosting hundreds of federal agents. 

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

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

“If I’m going somewhere to cover something and there’s likely to be police action, I’m much more aware of that,” he said. “Typically, I would be right there in the midst of it, but now I tell myself, if that kind of **** hits the fan when you’re out here, just walk away, because you don’t need that. So, yeah, I hate to admit it, but it has put that fear in me.” 

Crews said he felt the indictment was meant to have a chilling effect on local activists.

“It just adds stress to the leadership up here,” he said. “We have very effective grassroots leadership here, and I think this indictment is a way to silence and slow down 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 battled post-traumatic stress disorder from his time in Afghanistan, said joining protests in the Twin Cities has felt like a realization of the decade of work he’s done on himself. “I’ve had so many veterans reaching out, saying, ‘Hey, you’re giving me the freedom to take action myself,’” he said.

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

“I had so much peace, I did not hear my dog barking. I guess they were banging on the door, ringing the bell — I didn’t hear any of that,” she recalled. 

Inside federal agents’ van, she began praising God. 

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

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

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

“We know that we’re standing on the right side of history,” she said. 

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