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Tags: kristi noem | minnesota | church | arrests | blm | don lemon | anti-ice

Kristi Noem to Newsmax: Arrests Imminent After Minn. Church Protest

By    |   Tuesday, 20 January 2026 07:20 PM EST

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told Newsmax on Tuesday that arrests will soon be made in connection with an incident at a Minnesota church where anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement activists interrupted a service.

The Department of Justice said it is investigating a group of protesters who disrupted services at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. One of the church's pastors, David Easterwood, allegedly leads the local ICE field office overseeing operations involving the arrest of illegal aliens.

"There's going to be arrests in the next several hours, Greta," Noem told "The Record With Greta Van Susteren." "There will be arrests tied to that, and people will be brought to justice for how they violated the law in that situation."

Noem did not elaborate on who would be arrested but said people involved, including former CNN anchor Don Lemon, had prior knowledge of the activists' plans.

Lemon said during a livestream that the group's plans were intentionally undisclosed ahead of time. He said the protest was organized by Nekima Levy Armstrong, who has "been doing this since George Floyd, Daunte Wright, and others, where they surprise people, catch them off guard, and hold them to account."

The protest was also livestreamed on the Facebook page of Black Lives Matter Minnesota.

"The fact that ahead of time before this even happened, he said that he had conducted some surveillance before they went into this church," Noem said about Lemon.

"He identified individuals that were going in with him that were activists, and the work that they'd done in the past, the fact that this entire situation was then posted on the Black Lives Matter website, all of that is something that they're going to be responsible for."

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Michael Katz

Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.

© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.


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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told Newsmax on Tuesday that arrests will soon be made in connection with an incident at a Minnesota church where anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement activists interrupted a service.
kristi noem, minnesota, church, arrests, blm, don lemon, anti-ice, enforcement
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2026-20-20
Tuesday, 20 January 2026 07:20 PM
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