Don Lemon reporting from Minnesota – YouTube Screenshot
Don Lemon was arrested by federal authorities for reporting on a protest against the Trump administration’s immigration policies that disrupted a church service in St. Paul, Minnesota, earlier this month.
The 59-year-old gay journalist was arrested around 11 p.m. in a Beverly Hills hotel lobby by agents from the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations, the primary investigative arm of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to CNN. He was in Los Angeles to cover the Grammy Awards.
According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Lemon has been charged with conspiracy and interfering with the First Amendment rights of worshippers. It remains unclear whether those charges had been approved by a judge or a grand jury.
Federal authorities previously attempted — and failed — to charge Lemon with violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. The law — originally intended to protect access to reproductive health care clinics — also prohibits the use of force, threats, or physical obstruction to interfere with people exercising their right to religious worship.
On Friday, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said she had ordered federal agents to arrest Lemon and three others, including independent journalist Georgia Fort, in connection with what she described as a “coordinated attack” on Cities Church, which is affiliated with the Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptist Convention.
The protest was one of several held in Minneapolis and St. Paul opposing the Trump administration’s deployment of ICE and Border Patrol agents to Minnesota as part of a broader federal immigration crackdown. Many of the demonstrations also denounced the killing of Renee Nicole Good, a U.S. citizen and queer Minneapolis resident who was fatally shot by an ICE officer during a January 7 protest. The Trump administration has claimed Good was a terrorist who endangered the agent’s life.
Organizers of the January 18 protest targeted Cities Church because one of its pastors, David Easterwood, serves as the acting field office director for ICE in Minnesota. Inside the church, protesters shouted at congregants, including children, held up signs, and chanted “ICE out.”
During the protest, Lemon entered the church and interviewed the pastor conducting the service — who was not Easterwood — as well as congregants and several demonstrators.
Federal prosecutors attempted to charge Lemon under the FACE Act, but a federal magistrate judge refused to sign the complaint, citing insufficient evidence. After U.S. District Court Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz declined to intervene — calling the Justice Department’s request “unprecedented” — prosecutors appealed to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which rejected the government’s effort to force the charges forward.
Despite the magistrate judge’s rejection, the Justice Department said it intended to continue pursuing charges against Lemon, who has maintained that he was exercising his First Amendment rights by reporting on the protest, according to NBC News.
“Don has been a journalist for 30 years, and his constitutionally protected work in Minneapolis was no different than what he has always done,” his attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement. “The First Amendment exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold those in power accountable. There is no more important time for people like Don to be doing this work.
“Instead of investigating the federal agents who killed two peaceful Minnesota protesters, the Trump Justice Department is devoting its time, attention and resources to this arrest, and that is the real indictment of wrongdoing in this case,” Lowell added. “This unprecedented attack on the First Amendment and transparent attempt to distract attention from the many crises facing this administration will not stand. Don will fight these charges vigorously and thoroughly in court.”
Fort, a Minneapolis-based independent journalist who filmed the protest and has reported extensively on ICE’s actions and citizen resistance to the immigration crackdown, said she was also arrested after federal agents came to her home following a grand jury indictment.
The Human Rights Campaign called the arrests of Lemon and Fort a “breathtaking escalation of the Trump Administration’s all-out assault on the U.S. Constitution.”
“This moment should serve as a wake-up call to every American who cares about civil liberties,” HRC President Kelley Robinson said in a statement. “When journalists can be detained for covering protests, none of us are safe. None of us are free.”
A federal judge who routinely sides with conservative activists has upheld West Texas A&M University’s ban on campus drag performances, ignoring long-standing precedent and rejecting First Amendment arguments for why the prohibition should be overturned.
West Texas A&M University imposed the ban in 2023, when University President Walter Wendler barred Spectrum WT, the college's LGBTQ student organization, from hosting a campus drag show to raise money for The Trevor Project, the nation's leading LGBTQ suicide prevention organization.
Wendler blocked the show on the grounds that drag is "misogynistic" and mocks women, comparing the art form to blackface. He also maintained there is no such thing as a "harmless drag show," arguing that performers adopt exaggerated gender expressions through makeup, clothing, and prosthetics that stereotype and insult women.
A gay couple who fled Iran and sought asylum in the United States are now facing deportation back to their home country, where they could be executed under Iran’s laws criminalizing homosexuality.
The men -- in their late 30s and early 40s -- were initially part of a group of more than 40 Iranian nationals, including Christians fleeing religious persecution, who were scheduled to be deported on a flight departing Arizona’s Mesa Gateway Airport on Sunday, January 25.
Rebekah Wolf, an attorney with the American Immigration Council, which represents the couple, said her clients would likely face public execution if returned to Iran.
A new report finds that acceptance of LGBTQ people is declining across the United States, with nearly three in ten LGBTQ adults saying attitudes toward their community have worsened.
On Thursday, January 15, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation released findings from its Annual LGBTQ+ Community Survey, which drew responses from nearly 15,000 U.S. adults -- roughly two-thirds of whom identified as LGBTQ.
In addition to the survey, HRC last year launched its "American Dreams Tour," traveling to 10 cities and engaging more than 5,000 people through town halls, trainings, and community meetings with local LGBTQ leaders and activists. Those on-the-ground conversations informed the report, which aims to assess the state of LGBTQ life in the United States one year into the second Trump administration.
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