‘We Will Protect Our Churches’—Feds Arrest 3 People Involved in Anti-ICE Church Protest

The law states, “Unlike most conspiracy statutes, §241 does not require, as an element, the commission of an overt act.” It continues:

The offense is always a felony, even if the underlying conduct would not, on its own, establish a felony violation of another criminal civil rights statute. It is punishable by up to ten years imprisonment unless the government proves an aggravating factor (such as that the offense involved kidnapping aggravated sexual abuse, or resulted in death) in which case it may be punished by up to life imprisonment and, if death results, may be eligible for the death penalty. Section 241 is used in Law Enforcement Misconduct and Hate Crime Prosecutions. It was historically used, before conspiracy-specific trafficking statutes were adopted, in Human Trafficking prosecutions.

DHS posted that Allen was charged with “conspiracy to deprive rights for her role in the St. Paul church riots.”

Noem posted that Kelly was also charged with “conspiracy to deprive rights, a federal crime, for his involvement in the St. Paul church riots.”

Nekima Levy Armstrong Explains ‘Operation Pull Up’

Before entering the worship service at Cities Church on Sunday morning, Don Lemon, who was fired from CNN in 2023, asked Armstrong to explain why she was participating in the protest. Lemon also disclosed that Armstrong appeared on “The Don Lemon Show” two days earlier.

“Nekima Levy Armstrong, civil rights attorney, longtime activist here in the community, and we protest and do activism in all kinds of ways,” Armstrong said. “This is ‘Operation Pull Up,’ more of a clandestine operation.”

She explained, “We show up somewhere that is a key location. They don’t expect us to come there, and then we disrupt business as usual. So that’s what we’re about to go do right now. We’ve had a lot of success with the times we have done Operation Pull Up after George Floyd was killed.”

RELATED: Pastor Willy Rice Calls Anti-ICE Church Disruption ‘Shocking’

Following the protest, Lemon spoke with Armstrong again, telling her that people “think you lost and that this didn’t accomplish anything and you went into their house, the house of the Lord.”

“The reality is,” Armstrong said, “the house of the Lord is a place where love lives. It’s not a place where you can have a pastor masquerading as the director for the field office of ICE in St. Paul…how dare you be a pastor of God and you be involved in evil in our community.”