Noem backtracks on ICE pepper spray denial amid tension in Minneapolis

Kristi Noem first denied that federal agents were using chemical agents against protesters, then after being shown video footage turned to blaming the protesters themselves, as tensions continued to run high amid the Trump administration’s surge of federal officers into Minneapolis.

The head of homeland security, who has acted as spearhead for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation in the city – known as “Operation Metro Surge” – told the CBS show Face the Nation on Sunday that her department had not used pepper spray against crowds.

A federal judge on Friday had ordered that federal law enforcement stop using pepper spraying against peaceful protesters, whom Noem has accused of attempting to hinder the immigration crackdown. Kate Menendez found federal agents had used “chemical irritants” to punish protesters for exercising “protected first amendment rights to assemble and to observe and protest ICE operations”.

Noem first denied the judge’s finding, but after being shown a video of chemical agents being used on four occasions, she backtracked and said her department “only use those chemical agents when there’s violence happening and perpetuating and you need to be able to establish law in order to keep people safe”.

Tensions continue to run high in Minneapolis, with the Pentagon ordering around 1,500 active-duty soldiers stationed in Alaska to prepare for a possible deployment, which Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey has described as a “ridiculous” overreaction to largely peaceful protests against the violent behaviour of ICE agents.

On Sunday the Department of Justice also declared it is investigating a group of protesters who disrupted services at a church where a local ICE official is reportedly a pastor. Footage livestreamed by Black Lives Matter Minnesota showed people interrupting services at the Cities church in St Paul by chanting “ICE out” and “justice for Renee Good”, referring to the 37-year-old mother of three who was fatally shot by an ICE agent.

The assistant attorney general, Harmeet Dhillon, announced on social media an investigation into purported civil rights violations “by these people desecrating a house of worship and interfering with Christian worshippers”, adding: “A house of worship is not a public forum for your protest! It is a space protected from exactly such acts by federal criminal and civil laws!”

Nekima Levy Armstrong of the Racial Justice Network was dismissive of the threat of an investigation. “If people are more concerned about someone coming to a church on a Sunday and disrupting business as usual than they are about the atrocities that we are experiencing in our community, then they need to check their theology and the need to check their hearts,” she told the Associated Press.

It is not clear whether David Easterwood, the pastor who also reportedly heads the local ICE field office, was present at the church. He has defended ICE tactics in Minnesota such as swapping out license plates and using pepper spray on protesters.

Those tactics have inflamed an atmosphere that the Minneapolis parks and recreation department cited as the reason for canceling youth sports on Friday and Sunday “out of an abundance of caution”. Meanwhile, the newly installed Laotian American mayor of St Paul, Kaohly Her, said she had “received advice to carry my passport with me because they may try to target me based on what I look like as well”.

Some protesters arrested during ICE operations in Minneapolis have been denied their right to see an attorney, according to ABC News, citing four attorneys who said there were denied access to clients at the federal building in Minneapolis, the site of now daily protests.

“ICE agents were physically restricting me from seeing them,” one immigration attorney who asked not to be identified told ABC. “I stood outside the attorney visitation room for about four hours on Thursday, trying to see one of my clients who had been there for multiple days. I kept saying, you got to let me see my client. And they just kept repeating, we don’t do attorney visitation.”

A DHS spokesperson denied the claims, saying all detainees “have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers” and said “all detainees receive full due process”.