CNN One Thing

Welcome back to One Thing, I'm David Reind, and it's freezing in Minneapolis, but does the chilling effect also extend to acts of resistance?

I think anyone attempting in any way to push back against what the administration is doing in the Twin Cities has felt that fear of how involved should I get, what battles should I pick.

Stick around. Do you talk to your kids about what's going on? You have to, man. I mean...

It's unavoidable. Their school is, was canceled for two days because our high school, the agents went into the high school. But it's, it's really hard to explain it to little kids, man. You know, they don't know how crazy this is, but they know what a nice agent looks like in their mask with their, you know, whatever else.

'The tension in Minneapolis is still sky high, a full two weeks after a federal immigration agent shot and killed a 37-year-old U.S. Citizen, Renee Nicole Goode. Thousands of federal agents are still on the ground. They outnumber the local police. Protests are continuing, too, and they're drawing in people like Tucker.

Before this, I went to a couple of union meetings a year and I voted, but that was about it. This is definitely new for me.

Tucker asks we only use his first name, because he's worried about ICE retaliating against him for his activism. He doesn't want to put his two young kids at risk. Like he said, this is new for Tucker. He's a millwright by trade. He's never been part of a neighborhood resistance network. But he said after Renee Goode was killed and thousands of federal agents descended on the Twin Cities, he started hearing stories from his kid's elementary school. And he knew he had to do something.

It's a pretty diverse setup. And so there are a number of families there who are really affected by this, people sheltering in place or who have had their breadwinners taken away, people who can't go to the grocery store. So there was just a lot of need. And you really can't watch what's happening, especially outside your own window, where you see them. I mean, you see that not every day, but a lot. They're around. And you can't not do anything. So we asked what we could do and a lot of that's like food delivery aid or mutual aid, you know, for people's rents and stuff like that.

I guess I could ask why is this, because like you've seen obviously the coverage in the videos of how these federal agents have responded sometimes with a use of force, tackling folks using the chemical agents. So you see all that. Was there not any part of you that was like, and maybe I shouldn't be putting myself out there. That doesn't really seem safe, even if I am kind of opposed to what's been going on.

I hear you. Yeah, I mean, that is definitely part of the calculation, but I don't think we can avoid it. I don t think anybody feels like they can avoid. The, you know, network of people watching is just people watching out their windows or going on a walk or driving to work. And so organizing on that small, small level is kind of the only way to do this. And as well as like the big institutions are slow, like really slow. And this is happening really, really fast. And so hopefully we get bigger. Responses from our local institutions at some point here, but until then, it's just talking to your people who live right around you.

The U.S. Justice Department has launched criminal probes into top Minnesota Democrats, including Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. A source tells CNN that subpoenas have been issued as part of an investigation into whether the officials obstructed federal immigration enforcement.

The Justice Department is vowing to press charges after a group of protesters in Minnesota disrupted services at a church.

That's a crime. And so they will face a jury. If they're convicted, they will go to prison.

'The past few days have raised serious questions about just how far the Trump administration is willing to go to tamp down dissent over its sweeping immigration crackdown. And we're getting signs the American people don't love the answer so far. According to a recent CNN poll, half of the Americans questioned think ICE is making US cities less safe, not safer. And by a 10-point margin, 47% to 37%, Americans say they are more concerned about crackdowns on those protesting deportations than about the protests themselves getting out of hand. So, what does the law actually say about the tactics, where protesters are allowed to go, and what this means for other cities? Rachel Moran is a law professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis. So Rachel, we've been talking a lot about what's been going on in Minneapolis, especially as it relates to the protests around immigration enforcement and how protesters are interacting with federal law enforcement. And on Friday night, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction after the ACLU filed a lawsuit claiming immigration agents violated U.S. Citizens' constitutional rights. So can you just tell me what this ruling said?

Sure. In a lot of ways, the ruling was pretty basic. Essentially, it said that immigration agents can't do things that they're already not allowed to do, but they've been doing. So retaliating against protesters, using force when it's not appropriate, using chemical munitions when it's not justified. And retaliate against people who follow them in their cars. So it basically said, you need to respect these First Amendment rights, which already was the law, but now there's a court order saying so.

Yeah, I mean, that all sounds pretty reasonable. And I know DHS has said it has followed these guidelines already, but we've seen videos where that seems to not be the case. So what does this ruling actually accomplish, if anything?

Well, what it accomplishes is now those same lawyers can go back to court in front of the judge with specific evidence of violations and ask that DHS be held in contempt or that some other restrictions be put in place. So really, it's helpful to have a court order saying, yes, I've seen evidence sufficient to support the idea that the agents are in fact violating the law, and now they can be held in contempt if they violate it again.

So I know it says that the agents are not supposed to be doing this stuff against peaceful protesters, but how do you define peaceful protesters? And is that different from what the Trump administration's current definition seems to be?

Yeah, and that's where things always get messy, is like, what does peaceful mean? What does interference or obstruction mean? And historically, we see this a lot, where law enforcement agencies, and I'm not just talking about federal agencies now, tend to read those words really differently. And frankly, tend those words in a way that's different than what courts say and that does infringe on First Amendment protections. And so... It's pretty common for agencies to believe that someone's interfering or obstructing when they're not actually, for example, by recording or by simply getting close or by following in a car.

I mean, talk to me about the actual recording. Like you see somebody maybe 10 feet away from a bunch of agents crowded around somebody with their phone up and an agent comes up to them and says, hey, you're interfering there. I mean how did they come to that?

I mean, I don't even really think that there's a good faith way to interpret that. I just think that a lot of agents either who do not know the law at all or who are acting in bad faith or both. And so that's a great example you just gave. We've seen all sorts of videos of agents knocking phones out of people's hands or yelling at them, threatening arrests, even making arrests of situations where there's not even a plausible argument that those people are actually physically interfering. Agents operations.

What about screaming, profanities, or yelling, or whistling? Because that is actually distracting, and I imagine makes it harder for agents to communicate with one another as they're trying to detain someone. Is that an example where you could have a case against someone for interfering?

No, probably not. And I understand how that feels like a closer call. That's different than just peacefully or silently observing. But most courts to interpret interference statutes are very clear that there has to be some element of physical interference. The only real exception to that is if you're screaming. What could be called a true threat, that so your language suggests the agents are an imminent danger of violence or a fight because of your language, that could be considered not protected by the First Amendment. But just screaming profanities, even if it's distracting, is protected.

When we come back, did protesters cross a line by entering a house of God? We'll talk about that next, stick around.

You're actually...

In the past few days, there's been a lot of back and forth about this incident that occurred at a church in St. Paul on Sunday.

Rene Good, Rene Good!

A group of protesters came inside the church and disrupted services there because they claimed a local ICE officer is also a pastor at this church.

ICE out! ICE out!

The Department of Homeland Security did not confirm the pastor's alleged connection to ICE. They said they will never dox their officers, but one of the pastors listed by the church appears to be the same David Easterwood, who is a top ICE official in the Twin Cities. And in fact, he was recently named as a defendant in that lawsuit that we talked about earlier. But now the DOJ says, It's investigating protesters for possible federal civil rights violations, said they desecrated the house of worship. As we talk here on Tuesday morning, you know, criminal warrants haven't been issued or anything like that, but they say that is a possibility. So I'm wondering from you, is it a civil rights violation to enter a church and start Shouting.

Very unlikely. The law that they're referring to, it does speak to interfering with a person's ability to exercise the right of religious freedom at a place of worship. But what it requires in order for a prosecution is that the person interfering acts with force or threat of force or by physical obstruction. And so, again, it's actually similar to what we're talking about in the other context of interference. The law requires more than speech. It requires even more than the speech that interrupts, right? It requires some physical action. And in this case, it actually requires force, threat of force, or physical obstruction.

So an interruption is not necessarily enough. Like somebody has to actually get in the way or threaten to topple something over, push somebody out of the way, you're saying. Right. And there's also, you know, the former CNN host Don Lemon is involved in all this as well. He was there live streaming. He says as a journalist and not as a protester. And there is just this kind of. First Amendment questions swirling around all this, whether it's people's right to protest or journalists' right to cover what is going on with these agents in the Twin Cities. And it seems like that line is really mashing up against what the Trump administration is trying to do.

Right. And what I would say is it's sort of like a boy who cried wolf situation. The administration has taken such a strong and frankly absurd position about what is interference, what is illegal protests, the threats they've made to investigate for alleged crimes, so many people who have simply spoken out, that it just becomes harder and harder to believe. That they are acting in any sort of good faith. In this context, they've made a lot of threats against a lot people who have not apparently violated any criminal laws. And that very likely includes the people who interrupted the church service. You can certainly find that distasteful or the wrong place to choose to protest, but in terms of whether it's a crime, very unlikely.

Yeah, I mean, I was going to say, is it unwise just in this current climate for protesters to be going into a church like that, or like, should people be kind of picking their spots more carefully, I guess, just in light of all these threats of criminal prosecution we're hearing from the Trump DOJ?

I think that's really up to individual people and their choices in terms of whether they want to expose themselves to the threat of an investigation. I think almost anyone speaking publicly or even speaking to the media in the Twin Cities feels that, which is anybody who goes out to be a legal observer, anyone who goes out to protest, we all have felt the reality that there could be retaliation. It could be. From an agent on the ground or it could be from a higher level, but I think anyone attempting in any way to push back against what the administration is doing in the Twin Cities has felt that fear of how involved should I get, what battles should I pick.

I want to ask quickly about how ICE is doing these immigration enforcement sweeps. We've been talking a lot about the protesters, but there's been a lot of questions about who exactly these federal agents can and can't detain and how far they can go. So what jurisdiction does ICE have over people who are US citizens? We obviously have heard stories of US citizens being detained, but what is the line there?

So immigration officers do have authority to make arrests for criminal violations of federal law that are happening in their presence, or if they have reasonable grounds to believe a U.S. Citizen is committing a federal felony. So it's limited to federal law, and it's limit to either crimes happening in their present or serious crimes like felonies, that they have a reasonable grounds to believe the citizen has committed.

'What about if you're a full-fledged citizen, but you don't necessarily have documents to prove that right in the moment, what happens then?

So what actually has been happening tragically is a lot of US citizens getting arrested. It's almost entirely people of color, and some of those folks are getting detained even for days. That is not what the law allows. The law requires probable cause to believe someone is illegally in the country. And so what's happening is that the administration is trying to put the burden on citizens to prove that we belong. Instead of what the law says, which is the burden on an immigration agent to have probable cause to believe a person is not legally in the country.

And I think you have people who are maybe being caught up in some of these actions looking at the case of Renee Good and how the justice department says there's no basis for an investigation into the agent who did the shooting. And they say, well, then what hope do I have for any recourse if an agent did act outside the law and was too aggressive in stopping me, detaining me, that kind of thing.

Right, and the administration is making false claims that all federal agents are absolutely immune from criminal prosecution or civil lawsuits, it sounds like they're saying. That's not correct. There are a lot of complicated legal protections that can apply, but this term absolute immunity is not applicable to these agents, but people are hearing it. People are trying to decipher, would I have any recourse? And the reality is it'll be hard, especially because most of the agents are masked. They don't have identifiable. Name badges, sometimes it's hard to tell even what agency exactly they're representing. So there are a lot of barriers to holding anyone accountable for these violations we're seeing.

Personally, for you, what has it been like as a legal expert watching all of this play out in your backyard?

It's really sad and it's hard. I was here when George Floyd was murdered. I live in downtown Minneapolis. I lived there then too. I experienced that chaos. This is in some ways really similar and in some way different. And it's to see the community so torn apart. It's hard to see. People getting deported who we welcomed into this country. It's hard to see some of my students living in fear or friends. It's really a painful time, and yet it's also pretty empowering to see how many community members are stepping up. Minneapolis is really responding and showing a lot of care for each other that I do think is an example to the rest of the country.

Rachel, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. On Tuesday, President Trump marked his first full year back in office by joining the White House press briefing, where he held up mugshots of people he said were undocumented migrants apprehended as part of his immigration crackdown.

And, you know, they're going to make mistakes sometimes. ICE is going to be too rough with somebody or, you know, you're dealing with rough people. They're going make a mistake sometimes. It can happen.

While he didn't say if the Renee Good shooting was one of those mistakes, Trump repeatedly said he felt bad about her death.

I felt horribly when I was told that the young woman who had the tragedy, it's a tragedy, it's horrible thing, everybody would say, ICE would say the same.

And as Attorney General Pam Bondi made an unannounced visit to Minneapolis, sources familiar with the matter told CNN that the Justice Department has subpoenaed at least five officials as part of a probe into whether state and local leaders obstructed federal immigration enforcement efforts. The officials include Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and St. Paul Mayor Kali Herr. Fry said in a statement, quote, when the federal government weaponizes its power to try to intimidate local leaders for doing their jobs, every American should be concerned. That's it for today. We're back on Sunday. I'll talk to you then.