Jonathan Parnell, the pastor who led the disrupted service, is a missionary with Ezell’s group and serves dozens of Southern Baptist churches in the area. Cities Church, housed in a Gothic-style, century-old stone building next to a college campus on one of the Twin Cities’ landmark boulevards, has not returned AP requests for comment.

A Sunday morning church service in the Twin Cities interrupted by anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protesters is the latest flash point in escalating tensions between the Trump administration and demonstrators in Minnesota.

Hundreds protest ICE in Monroe Park after Governor Spanberger reverses immigration order, continuing momentum from last weekend's demonstration

MINNEAPOLIS, Jan 16 (Reuters) - A federal judge in Minnesota on Friday ordered that U.S. immigration agents deployed en masse to Minneapolis be restricted in some of the tactics they have taken against peaceful demonstrators and observers, including arrests and tear-gassing.

Federal immigration agents deployed to Minneapolis have used aggressive crowd-control tactics — including pointing rifles at demonstrators and deploying chemical irritants — actions the government says are necessary to protect officers from violent

On a cold and windy Martin Luther King Jr. Day, hundreds of people marched through Center City to protest the actions of U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Organizers and marchers alike decried an ICE officer killing Renee Good in Minnesota, as well as the deaths of people in ICE custody since 2025.

A federal judge ordered agents not to retaliate against people “engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest activity” in the state and not to stop drivers who are not “forcibly obstructing” officers.

Officers in the Minneapolis-area participating in a U.S. immigration enforcement operation can't detain or tear gas peaceful protesters who aren't obstructing authorities, a judge ruled Friday.

US District Judge Kate Menendez’s ruling addresses a case filed in December on behalf of six Minnesota activists who have been observing the activities of Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Activists gathered with signs and chants to protest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations and to distribute legal rights information on Jan. 11 in Mesa, as part of a national weekend of action following the shooting death of a woman by an ICE agent Minneapolis.

ICE agitators in Minneapolis on Saturday. (Credit: Adam Beers via Storyful)