MINNEAPOLIS: A prominent civil rights attorney and at least two other people involved in an anti-immigration enforcement protest that disrupted a service at a Minnesota church have been arrested, Trump administration officials said Thursday, even as a judge rebuffed related charges against journalist Don Lemon.
Vice President JD Vance, speaking in Minneapolis, urged state and local law enforcement to collaborate with federal officials and said protesters must stop getting in their way.
Attorney General Pam Bondi posted online that Nekima Levy Armstrong had been arrested. On Sunday, protesters entered the Cities Church in St. Paul, where an US Immigration and Customs Enforcement official serves as a pastor. Bondi later posted that a second person had been arrested, and FBI Director Kash Patel announced a third.
The Justice Department quickly opened a civil rights investigation after the group interrupted services 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 officer in Minneapolis earlier this month.
“Listen loud and clear: WE DO NOT TOLERATE ATTACKS ON PLACES OF WORSHIP,” the attorney general wrote on X.
Cities Church belongs to the Southern Baptist Convention and lists one of its pastors as David Easterwood, who leads an ICE field office. Many Baptist churches have pastors who also work other jobs.
Church lawyers praise the arrests
Prominent leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention have argued that compassion for migrant families cannot justify violating a sacred space during worship.
Attorneys representing the church hailed the arrests.
“The US Department of Justice acted decisively by arresting those who coordinated and carried out the terrible crime,” Doug Wardlow, director of litigation for True North Legal, said in a statement.
The St. Paul-based nonprofit law firm has taken on religious freedom cases, including filing an amicus brief to the US Supreme Court supporting a Christian counselor who challenged bans on LGBTQ+ “conversion therapy” for kids as a violation of her First Amendment rights.
Levy Armstrong, an attorney and longtime activist, had called for the pastor affiliated with ICE to resign, saying his dual role poses a “fundamental moral conflict.”
“You cannot lead a congregation while directing an agency whose actions have cost lives and inflicted fear in our communities,” she said Tuesday. “When officials protect armed agents, repeatedly refuse meaningful investigation into killings like Renee Good’s, and signal they may pursue peaceful protesters and journalists, that is not justice — it is intimidation.”
Vance wants local law enforcement to assist federal officers
State and local elected officials have opposed the crackdown that has become a major focus of Department of Homeland Security sweeps.
Vance arrived in the state less than a month after Renee Good was killed. He has called Good’s death a “tragedy of her own making.”
Before his Minnesota visit, Vance warned the church protesters: “Those people are going to be sent to prison so long as we have the power to do so.”
Later in Minneapolis, he urged state and city law enforcement to help federal immigration officers.
“We’re doing everything that we can to lower the temperature,” Vance said, adding that he wants “state and local officials to meet us halfway.”
Greg Bovino, a US Border Patrol official, said Minneapolis police failed to help federal agents Wednesday who were surrounded by protesters at a gas station. Minneapolis police responded later that they hadn’t received any requests from federal agents for assistance on Wednesday.
Protesters appear in court
Levy Armstrong has helped lead protests after the high-profile police-involved killings of Black Americans, including George Floyd, Philando Castile and Jamar Clark. She is a former president of the NAACP’s Minneapolis branch.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted a photo on X of Levy Armstrong with her arms behind her back next to a person wearing a badge. Noem said she faces a charge under a statute that bars threatening or intimidating someone exercising a right.
Patel posted on X that Chauntyll Louisa Allen, the second person Bondi said was arrested, is charged under a law that prohibits physically obstructing or using the threat of force to intimidate or interfere with a person seeking to participate in a service at a house of worship. Patel said William Kelly has also been arrested.
Levy Armstrong, Kelly and Allen have all been booked about 35 miles north of Minneapolis in Sherburne County Jail, where people in federal custody are usually held.
A message seeking comment was sent to Allen’s and Kelly’s attorney.
Saint Paul Public Schools, where Allen is a board of education member, said it is aware of her arrest but will not comment on pending legal matters.
Allen and Levy Armstrong are part of a community of Black Minnesota activists.
Kelly has defended the protest and criticized the church for associating with a pastor who works for ICE.
In court Thursday, federal magistrate judge Doug Micko granted the women bond and restricted them from traveling outside Minnesota or from going near the church. The government said it would appeal and the women remained in federal custody Thursday afternoon.
Levy Armstrong’s attorney, Jordan Kushner, said he offered for her to turn herself in peacefully, but the Trump administration insisted on arresting her.
“They wanted a spectacle,” Levy Armstrong’s husband, Marques Armstrong, said, recalling around 50 agents came to detain her.
Arrests follow a DOJ civil rights investigation
The Justice Department investigated the church protest swiftly, but found no basis for a civil rights investigation into Good’s death.
Administration officials have said the officer acted in self-defense and that the driver of the Honda was engaging in “an act of domestic terrorism” when she pulled toward him. Past administrations, however, have moved quickly to probe shootings of civilians by law enforcement officials.
The Justice Department has separately opened an investigation into whether Minnesota officials impeded or obstructed federal immigration enforcement though their public statements. Prosecutors this week sent subpoenas to the offices of Gov. Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her and officials in Ramsey and Hennepin counties, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Judge rejects charges against Lemon
A magistrate judge rejected federal prosecutors’ bid to charge journalist Don Lemon related to the church protest, said Kushner, Levy Armstrong’s attorney.
Lemon has said he was at the church as a journalist and not a protester.
“Once the protest started in the church we did an act of journalism which was report on it and talk to the people involved, including the pastor, members of the church and members of the organization,” Lemon said in a video posted on social media. “That’s it. That’s called journalism.”
Lemon’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement that the judge’s action confirms Lemon’s work as a reporter was protected by the First Amendment.
It wasn’t immediately clear what the Justice Department would do after the judge’s decision. Authorities could return to a magistrate judge to again seek a criminal complaint or an indictment against Lemon before a grand jury.
CNN, which fired Lemon in 2023, first reported the ruling.
Anti-ICE protest at Minnesota church leads to arrests but no charges for journalist Don Lemon
https://arab.news/8xb37
Anti-ICE protest at Minnesota church leads to arrests but no charges for journalist Don Lemon
What Bangladesh’s election means for India, China and Pakistan ties
- Bangladeshis will vote on Feb. 12, almost two years after the 2024 student-led uprising
- After nearly 2 years of tensions, experts expect a thaw with India under elected government
DHAKA: As Bangladesh prepares to hold its first elections since the 2024 ouster of Sheikh Hasina, its longest-serving prime minister, the outcome will define Dhaka’s relations with the most important regional powers — China, India, and Pakistan.
Nearly 128 million Bangladeshis will head to the polls on Feb. 12 to bring in new leadership after an 18-month rule of the current caretaker administration.
The interim government, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, took control following a student-led uprising that ended 15 years in power of Hasina and her Awami League party.
The two main parties out of the 51 competing for power are the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami. The Awami League, which for decades has had close ties with India, was excluded from the election ballot over its role in the deadly crackdown on the 2024 student-led protests, in which 1,400 people were killed.
While Bangladesh’s relationship India has deteriorated since the fall of Hasina, who has been in self-exile in New Delhi, the period of diplomatic strain is expected to ease when the new government takes office.
“Whoever comes to power in Bangladesh, due to domestic pressure in the country, relationships with India need a resetting,” Humayun Kabir, former ambassador to the US, told Arab News.
“It’s anticipated that India will also engage with the new government, but they will protect their interests, and we also have to do the same. It’s most likely that the India-Bangladesh relationship will be normalized under the new, elected, government.”
Since 2024, India has suspended key transshipment access that allowed Bangladeshi exports to go via Indian ports and airports. It also put on hold most normal visa services for Bangladeshis, who were among its largest groups of medical tourists.
From Hasina’s heavy pro-India orientation, the interim government has tried to rebalance Bangladesh’s foreign policy toward the two other key regional players — China and Pakistan — who at the same time are India’s main rivals.
If New Delhi regains its importance, it should not deal a blow to the newly expanded relations with Pakistan, with whom Bangladesh has recently increased exchanges, especially economic, and last month resumed direct flights — after a 14-year gap.
Since the relations have been expanded under the caretaker government, Prof. Delwar Hossain from the International Relations Department at Dhaka University forecast that they would only further improve, no matter who comes to power, and there is no likelihood of a sudden change.
“For Pakistan, any political coalition — whether BNP or Jamaat — will be positive. The BNP has a long history of having good relations with Pakistan during their rule ... Jamaat also has a strong and very positive influence in Pakistan,” he said.
“For Pakistan, the new regime or new government is not the issue. The issue is what the (India) policy of the new government would be and to what extent it would actually support Pakistan’s view.”
Both the BNP and Jamaat have repeatedly said they wanted friendly relations with India, and Hossain expected that they would, at the same time, continue the balanced approach introduced by the caretaker administration.
“India is a reality as a neighbor. At the same time, India is also showing interest in mending relations or adopting a more cooperative approach after the vote, with the government that will be elected ... I think there will be pragmatism from both sides,” he said.
“I don’t see there is a long-term threat to Bangladesh-India relations ... When China and Pakistan were trying to create a trilateral cooperative system or some kind of coalition — China, Bangladesh and Pakistan — we have seen that Bangladesh opted out. It seems that Bangladesh is going to continue its policy of maintaining a balance among these great powers.”
Bangladesh’s relations with China have not changed since the ouster of Hasina, whose government signed several economic agreements with Beijing. Yunus’s administration has continued this cooperation, and China was among the very few countries he officially visited during his term.
During the visit, he secured about $2.1 billion in Chinese investments, loans and grants, including funding for infrastructure like Mongla Port and a special economic zone in Chattogram — Bangladesh’s largest port. China has also eased visa rules for Bangladeshi businesspeople, medical travelers and tourists.
According to Munshi Faiz Ahmed, Bangladesh’s former ambassador to Beijing, China’s importance for Bangladesh cannot be substituted by any other country, especially as over the past few years it has emerged not only as its key investor, but also the largest trade partner.
In the fiscal year 2024-25, Bangladesh’s trade with China was over $21.3 billion, according to National Board of Revenue data. With India, it was about $11.5 billion.
The trade — especially import — dependence on Beijing started long before the regime change. In terms of trade volume, China overtook India already in 2018.
“Even when people thought that we had very close relations with India, our relations with China continued to grow in terms of trade and commerce ... Our trade with China has surpassed India’s, and China is a much bigger investor in Bangladesh’s development projects,” Ahmed said.
“Bangladesh will continue to cooperate with China for a long time to come because what China can provide, no other country can.”
