Department of Justice (DOJ) senior advisor Alina Habba has pledged to investigate “everybody” tied to anti-ICE protests in Minnesota after a mob targeted a church in St. Paul on Sunday.
The department launched an investigation after dozens of agitators burst into the Cities Church sanctuary during a service, attendees of the church told Fox News Digital. The mob stormed the building believing that one of the pastors was the acting director of ICE’s St. Paul field office.
“The FACE Act is a long-standing federal statute that prohibits force, threats, obstruction, any kind of interference with a religious place of worship. And it carries criminal penalties and violations,” Habba said Monday on “Fox & Friends.”
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Asked whether the DOJ would be investigating the protesters or the mayor and governor, Habba said “everybody” would be subject to the probe, pointing to the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act of 1994.
The FACE Act prohibits the use or threat of force and physical obstruction to interfere with a person seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services or to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship, according to the DOJ website.
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Habba said Attorney General Pam Bondi would “come down hard on anybody who tries to impede or intimidate somebody in a place of worship or a police officer or an ICE officer.”
“It’s just not going to happen in this administration, and Pam is making that very clear,” she added.
She also said the DOJ will look into whether these protests are being paid for by outside actors.
“If you are funding mass protests, if you are having protests that are not righteous protests — there are First Amendment rights that we respect — but that are putting people in risk, not allowing people to go to church, this Department of Justice will come down on you.”
Fox News Digital’s Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.
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