The US justice department has said it is investigating protesters who disrupted a Sunday service at a Minnesota church because they believe a pastor there works for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Video showed protesters inside the church chanting “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good”, the woman killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis earlier this month.
Justice department officials accuse the protesters of “desecrating a house of worship”, and say they will investigate them for civil rights violations.
Protesters say that one of the church’s eight pastors, David Easterwood, is a local ICE official.
Easterwood was not leading the service on Sunday.
A person by the same name is identified in ACLU court filings as the acting director of the ICE St Paul field office, according to reporting by the Associated Press and the Minnesota Star Tribune newspaper.
The AP also reported he appeared alongside Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem in Minneapolis at a news conference last October.
ICE: Its ok to perform an immigration raid in a church. It’s just not ok to protest that raid in a church.
Christian-nationalist brand fascism: we can do whatever we want within our church and don’t you dare tell us or speak back about the atrocities we commit.