Civil Rights Legal professional Faces “Trumped-Up Fees” for Anti-ICE Church Protest

Civil rights legal professional, minister and activist Nekima Levy Armstrong, who was arrested by federal officers for taking part in an anti-ICE demonstration at Cities Church in St. Paul, was launched from federal custody on Friday. “They’ve altered the info, simply as they altered my picture as a means of attempting to criminalize nonviolent, peaceable protests and lawful dissent towards their illegal and unjust actions,” says Armstrong, noting photographs posted by the Trump administration that digitally altered her to make it seem as if she was sobbing throughout her arrest.

TRANSCRIPT

It is a rush transcript. Copy might not be in its closing kind.

AMY GOODMAN: That is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, as we proceed to have a look at the lethal federal immigration crackdown in Minnesota.

We’re joined now by the civil rights legal professional, minister and activist Nekima Levy Armstrong. On Friday, she was launched from jail, a day after she and a minimum of two others had been arrested for taking part in an anti-ICE demonstration at Cities Church in St. Paul, the place one of many pastors additionally leads an area ICE subject workplace. It is a clip from that protest.

JONATHAN PARNELL: Disgrace on you! Disgrace on you!

NEKIMA LEVY ARMSTRONG: David Easterwood is a pastor right here. He’s additionally the director of the sector workplace for ICE in St. Paul. So, somebody who claims to worship God, instructing folks on this church about God, is on the market overseeing ICE brokers.

AMY GOODMAN: Nekima Levy Armstrong was arrested by Homeland Safety Investigations, HSI, and FBI brokers on the course of Legal professional Common Pam Bondi. Bondi introduced Armstrong’s arrest on social media, referring to the protest as a, quote, “coordinated assault” on a home of worship. The White Home then posted an AI-altered picture of Nekima’s arrest, making it seem she was crying, together with the textual content, ”ARRESTED: FAR-LEFT AGITATOR NEKIMA LEVY ARMSTRONG FOR ORCHESTRATING CHURCH RIOTS IN MINNESOTA,” unquote. The unaltered picture clearly exhibits she was not crying.

Nekima, welcome again to Democracy Now! There’s a lot to speak about because you had been launched from jail, to not point out what they’ve accomplished to your picture, to not point out them — what has occurred on Saturday, which we are going to point out, which is the killing of a second protester, Alex Pretti. Your response in any respect that has transpired? In a second, we’re going to go to the mass protest of tens of hundreds of Minnesotans on Friday.

NEKIMA LEVY ARMSTRONG: I feel it’s completely despicable, Amy, what our federal authorities is doing below the guise of immigration enforcement. They’ve primarily waged struggle within the streets of Minneapolis and the Twin Cities. And as you may see, two harmless civilians, Americans, have been brutally murdered by the hands of ICE brokers.

Not solely that, however, as you noticed, I’m being criminalized for serving to to steer a nonviolent, peaceable demonstration within a church during which David Easterwood serves as a pastor but in addition serves because the overseer for ICE brokers in Minnesota. He’s the very one who was cited in a lawsuit that was in entrance of Choose Menendez, the place he was justifying the conduct of ICE brokers, claiming that they weren’t behaving unconstitutionally, and in addition blaming protesters, claiming that protesters are the aggressors.

So, if you look collectively on the actions of the federal authorities, we’ve to grasp that what they’re doing is unconstitutional, it’s diabolical, it’s unlawful, and it’s unacceptable. We can’t be silent at a time like this. Even after what they’ve accomplished to me with these trumped-up costs, arresting me, actually, and bringing me in shackles from the federal courthouse to the Sherburne County Jail, together with my co-defendant, Chauntyll Allen, I’m persevering with to make use of my voice to talk out towards this fascism, tyranny and authoritarianism of the Trump administration. And others must do the identical.

AMY GOODMAN: What are you being charged with?

NEKIMA LEVY ARMSTRONG: We’re being charged with going right into a church below the FACE Act, and they’re claiming that we disrupted folks from with the ability to apply their faith, or that we meant to, which is totally not true. We didn’t cease folks from practising their faith. As a matter of truth, there have been people who had been nonetheless praying, who had been nonetheless worshiping, who had been nonetheless singing whereas we had been there in the course of the demonstration. And protesters and parishioners had been engaged in dialog throughout that point. And so, they’ve altered the info, simply as they altered my picture, as a means of attempting to criminalize nonviolent, peaceable protest and lawful dissent towards their illegal and unjust actions.

AMY GOODMAN: And the concept you will have been charged, however the ICE agent who killed Renee Good — an FBI agent, an FBI officer, has simply stop as a result of she was prevented from investigating [her] demise. And, in fact, we don’t know what has occurred to the CBP, the Customs and Border Patrol brokers who killed Alex Pretti. Had been they taken out of the state? We don’t know.

NEKIMA LEVY ARMSTRONG: From our understanding, they had been taken out of the state. And never solely does this point out a failure of our federal authorities by way of there being actually zero checks and balances for any of those federal brokers which have descended upon the streets of the Twin Cities of Minnesota, but it surely’s additionally a failure of our Democratic management.

AMY GOODMAN: Nekima Levy Armstrong, I wish to thanks for being with us.