The ICE Pastor - Worship Under Indictment and a Congregation Turned Into a Stage of Escalation

The conflict surrounding the fatal shooting of the 37-year-old Renee Good has now reached a church space as well. In St. Paul, activists interrupted a Sunday service at Cities Church, shouting “ICE out” and demanding justice for the mother of three who was shot and killed earlier this month in Minneapolis by an immigration officer. What began as a public protest is now being declared a legal front from Washington. The U.S. Department of Justice announced it was reviewing possible prosecution and spoke of potential violations of federal law. A livestream of the action, circulated by Black Lives Matter Minnesota, shows how the chants briefly overlaid the course of the service. The trigger runs deeper. According to investigations by us and two other investigative journalists, one of the church’s pastors, David Easterwood, is also the head of the local ICE field office - the very unit that has overseen operations in recent weeks in which violence, the use of chemical irritants, and controversial arrests occurred. It is the proximity of pulpit and command center that ignited the protest.

Protests in a congregation where a local ICE official appears alongside his government role also as a pastor.

Our inquiry was followed by a sharp reaction from the Justice Department. Only our question was not answered. The responsible division head stated publicly that the department was examining civil rights violations by individuals who had desecrated a place of worship and prevented Christian believers from holding a service. A house of worship, she said, was not a public space for demonstrations but explicitly protected from such actions. Attorney General Pam Bondi also spoke out and announced that every violation of federal law would be pursued.

On the ground, this line is being rejected. Nekima Levy Armstrong, who participated in the action and leads the Racial Justice Network, described the announced investigations as a distraction. While federal agents were proceeding with a heavy hand in Minneapolis and St. Paul, the focus was now to be shifted to the form of protest. Armstrong, herself an ordained pastor, said it was hard to fathom that someone could simultaneously bear spiritual responsibility and lead the very operations that had left fear and injuries in the region. Anyone more outraged by a disturbance on Sunday than by the suffering in their own neighborhood, she said, needed to examine their theology and conscience.

Any questions left when the same man appears under oath as the responsible head of an ICE office on the one hand and is publicly listed as a pastor of a congregation on the other - documented, dated, researched, and so far not disputed by any side?

The public presentation of the congregation deepens the unease. On the Cities Church website, David Easterwood is listed as a pastor. The name and details match those of the Easterwood who appears in court records as the acting head of the ICE office in St. Paul. Investigations now confirm this conclusively. In October, he stood next to then Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at a press conference in Minneapolis. Whether he was present on Sunday remained unclear. He did not lead the livestreamed portion of the service. Inquiries to the church went unanswered. In a sworn declaration dated January 5, Easterwood defended his agency’s tactics. He justified the changing of license plates and the use of chemical irritants and flashbang grenades by citing increasing threats against federal officers. He wrote that these measures were necessary to protect against violent attacks and denied that peaceful demonstrators or legal observers had been deliberately targeted. He further stated that his official actions as head of the ICE field office in Minnesota had been challenged in court. Several ongoing cases concern aggressive operational methods, the use of chemical irritants, flashbang grenades, and covert tactics against demonstrators. In such cases, courts require formal, penalty-backed statements from responsible agency heads. As the acting head of the regional ICE office, David Easterwood was legally obligated to submit this declaration.

That a man in the United States can simultaneously be a pastor of a congregation and a senior official of the immigration authority is not a breach of rules, but the result of a completely different system. “Pastor” in America is not a state-regulated office, but an internal function within a congregation, often honorary or part time, assigned without state-mandated training or oversight. At the same time, U.S. law generally does not prohibit federal officials from exercising religious functions, as long as they formally separate them from their official duties. Unlike in Germany, there is neither a church employment law with public obligations nor clear incompatibility rules between a clerical role and a state security function. Legally, this dual role is therefore possible - politically and socially, it becomes a conflict only when state violence, moral authority, and a lack of transparency visibly intersect.

The agency itself also sharpened its tone. It said it was now being attacked not only on the streets, but also in churches. Activists were moving from hotel to hotel and from church to church to track down federal officers who were risking their lives to protect Americans. For the protest organizers, this is a distortion. Monique Cullars-Doty, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Minnesota, called the announced prosecution misguided. If the leadership of a congregation is simultaneously coordinating deportations, she said, a fundamental question of responsibility and leadership arises. Looking away is not an option. Thus a worship service becomes a political flashpoint. Between pulpit and operational command, between protest and threat of prosecution, two interpretations collide. One sees the protection of religious space. The other asserts the right to name state action wherever it costs lives. The case of Renee Good remains the backdrop against which every further escalation will be measured.