Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Friday that 30 more people have been charged in connection with the anti-ICE protest that stormed a worship service at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, on January 18. Twenty-five of the 30 have already been arrested.
The new charges bring the total to 39 people facing federal counts for what a superseding indictment describes as "a coordinated takeover-style attack" on the church. Every one of them faces two counts: Conspiracy Against Right of Religious Freedom at Place of Worship and Injure, Intimidate, and Interfere with Exercise of Right of Religious Freedom at Place of Worship.
Among those already facing charges is former CNN anchor Don Lemon, who was arrested for his presence at the protest and pleaded not guilty on February 13. Lemon has argued he was there in his capacity as a journalist.
According to The Hill, the demonstrators descended on the church because they believed one of its pastors also served as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. What followed was not a peaceful protest. It was, according to the indictment, an act of "oppression, intimidation, threats, interference, and physical obstruction."
The superseding indictment laid out the consequences in plain terms:
"As a result of defendants' conduct, the pastor and congregation were forced to terminate the Church's worship service, congregants fled the Church building out of fear for their safety, other congregants took steps to implement an emergency plan, and young children were left to wonder, as one child put it, if their parents were going to die."
Children were wondering if their parents were going to die. In a church. On a Sunday. Because a mob decided that its political grievance outweighed the constitutional right of every person in that building to worship in peace.
The Attorney General's posts on X left no room for ambiguity. Bondi wrote that "YOU CANNOT ATTACK A HOUSE OF WORSHIP," and followed with a direct warning:
"If you do so, you cannot hide from us — we will find you, arrest you, and prosecute you."
She added that the Department of Justice "STANDS for Christians and all Americans of faith." The language is pointed, but the legal theory is not novel. Federal law protects the free exercise of religion at houses of worship. Conspiring to shut down a church service through intimidation is a federal crime. The DOJ is simply enforcing it.
That this needs to be stated so forcefully tells you something about the era we're living in.
Don Lemon's claim that he attended the protest as a journalist deserves scrutiny, not deference. Journalists cover events. They don't typically get swept up in federal civil rights indictments for doing so. The indictment names him alongside the other defendants, not as a bystander but as a participant in what prosecutors call a coordinated attack.
His not-guilty plea is his right. But the "I was just reporting" defense has become a remarkably convenient shield for people who happen to be present at exactly the kind of political action they publicly sympathize with. Courts will sort out the facts. The rest of us are allowed to notice the pattern.
For years, the political left has positioned itself as the defender of sacred spaces, of marginalized communities' right to gather without fear. Hate crime legislation, enhanced penalties for attacks on houses of worship, and federal civil rights protections: these were championed as essential safeguards for vulnerable congregations.
Now, a mob storms a church, terrorizes families, forces children to flee, and the same political coalition treats the perpetrators as activists exercising righteous dissent. The principle was never about protecting worship. It was about protecting the right kind of worship from the right kind of threat.
A conservative church targeted over its perceived connection to immigration enforcement does not trigger the same protective instincts. The outrage infrastructure stays quiet. The civil liberties organizations look the other way. The contradiction is the point.
Thirty-nine people now face federal charges. Twenty-five of the newly indicted have already been taken into custody. The DOJ is not treating this as a misdemeanor nuisance case or a zoning dispute. It is treating it as what it plainly was: a conspiracy to violate the civil rights of American citizens exercising their religious freedom.
There was a time when that kind of charge would have drawn bipartisan approval. Attacking a church, after all, is supposed to be one of those things that exists beyond the reach of partisan excuse-making. But immigration politics has a way of dissolving every principle it touches, and the people who rushed into Cities Church that January morning proved it.
The congregants didn't ask for a political confrontation. They came to worship. Their children came to sit beside them. What they got instead was a mob that decided its cause mattered more than their safety, their faith, and their rights.
Now the DOJ is answering. Thirty-nine times over.