JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Trump administration officials this morning announced the arrests of at least three people who staged a demonstration inside a church in St. Paul, Minnesota, last Sunday, where one of the pastors is a local ICE official. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem characterized the incident as a riot, and some of those demonstrators now face federal felony charges. Here to bring us the latest is Matt Sepic with Minnesota Public Radio. Hi.
MATT SEPIC, BYLINE: Hi there.
SUMMERS: Matt, tell us more about the people taken into custody today.
SEPIC: Federal agents arrested three people, William Kelly, Chauntyll Allen and Nekima Levy Armstrong. Allen is a St. Paul school board member and longtime Black Lives Matter activist. Levy Armstrong is a Christian pastor and a civil rights attorney. At the Sunday protest, Levy Armstrong said it was outrageous that Cities Church would have David Easterwood, a local ICE leader according to court documents, on its ministry team.
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NEKIMA LEVY ARMSTRONG: So someone who claims to worship God, teaching people in this church about God, is out there overseeing ICE agents.
SEPIC: As you can hear in this clip from independent journalist Georgia Fort, the protest was loud and disruptive. Easterwood did not appear to be in church that day, but another pastor turned up the music in an attempt to drown out the demonstrators. But they did not damage any property or hurt anyone.
SUMMERS: Matt, what charges are they facing?
SEPIC: Only Levy Armstrong and Allen made their first appearances in court to date. At the hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Rob Keenan and Orlando Sanza (ph) from the Justice Department said the defendants are charged with conspiracy against civil rights for depriving the church members of their First Amendment freedom to worship. I've covered many initial appearances in federal court here, and I have never seen anything like what happened today. Magistrate Judge Doug Micko asked to see the arrest warrants that are the basis of the criminal complaints, but Keenan and Sanza were not prepared. The judge called a brief recess while the prosecutors found the paperwork.
SUMMERS: In the meantime, what about the activists? Are they being held in jail currently?
SEPIC: Yes, for now. Prosecutors Keenan and Sanza argued that the demonstrators committed a violent crime because the parishioners feared for their safety. Therefore, they shouldn't be released from jail. To back this claim, they said a fleeing parishioner slipped on the icy pavement and broke her arm. Micko rejected the government's motion to detain Levy Armstrong and Allen as well as a request to have the two post $10,000 cash bail. In yet another unusual move, prosecutors appealed Micko's release order to another judge. That means Levy Armstrong and Allen were not freed right away. Levy Armstrong's lawyer, Jordan Kushner, calls the prosecution a purely political move.
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JORDAN KUSHNER: This is fascism right at work, right now, where you go to jail in prison because you exercise your First Amendment right to criticize the government.
SEPIC: And the White House today released doctored images on social media of Levy Armstrong crying as agents arrested her. Kushner said he was there when she was arrested and his client was not crying.
SUMMERS: There was also an incident yesterday that's drawn even more criticism of ICE. School officials say federal agents used a 5-year-old boy as bait to apprehend undocumented immigrants that were reportedly living at his home. What can you tell us about that?
SEPIC: Well, the suburban Columbia Heights school district says agents detained Liam Conejo Ramos, who was, as you said, 5 years old. School officials say masked agents apprehended Liam in his driveway as he returned home from school with his dad. They say one agent took the child out of the car, led him to the door and directed him to knock to see if anybody else was home. ICE soon took the father and child away. DHS says they are being detained in Texas.
SUMMERS: OK.
SEPIC: On social media, the Department of Homeland Security says ICE has never, quote, "used a child as bait."
SUMMERS: Thank you so much, Matt Sepic of Minnesota Public Radio.
SEPIC: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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