In Another Attack on Free Speech, Trump DOJ Indicts 15 Minneapolis Anti-ICE Activists

Interview with Pastor Doug Pagitt, executive director of the Minneapolis-based national organization Vote Common Good, conducted by Scott Harris

June 24, 2026

The Trump regime’s deployment of more than 2,000 ICE agents and Customs and Border Protection officers to Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota in January, brutalized, arrested and killed city residents that ignited national outrage and coast to coast protests. The federal government’s violent assault, met by mass organizing of peaceful resistance, culminated in the ICE agent shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Video recordings and bystander accounts found both Good and Pretti were peaceably exercising their rights to observe law enforcement actions, and innocent of any conduct that justified the lethal ICE agent response that resulted in their deaths.

Today, many in the Twin Cities are still recovering from the trauma inflicted by Trump’s ICE invasion called “Operation Metro Surge.” But on June 16, in another federal government action seen as an attempt to criminalize dissent and free speech, the Trump Department of Justice indicted 15 individuals in Minnesota associated with the group Direct Action Minnesota on charges of conspiracy to impede federal officers, stalking, and assault. The DOJ linked the defendants to antifa.

Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Pastor Doug Pagitt, executive director of the Minneapolis-based national organization Vote Common Good, who was on the front lines in solidarity with the Twin City’s massive civil resistance to the January ICE invasion. Here he talks about the trauma his city experienced, and this latest attack on free speech with the Department of Justice indictments of 15 Minneapolis anti-ICE activists.

PASTOR DOUG PAGITT: It really is a traumatic experience for so many people. But watching federal agents storm our streets really did traumatize a lot of people and there’s many trauma responses. One of those trauma responses is to not wait for anybody else and to step out yourself and to protect your city. So that happened all across our city and it’s still happening till this day to folks who ICE is targeting unlawfully—to get to work, to go to school, to go shopping, to pay their rent. Now the federal government is attacking another group of people here, protesters or journalists. They’re targeting everyone. And again, the civil libertarians in our world told us that if the federal government were to ever come after our rights, our First Amendment rights, freedom of speech, freedom of press, our Second Amendment rights to bear arms that they were going to be there for us.

And unfortunately, the conservative movement in the United States has completely found itself to be void of fulfilling any of its promises and all it has done is to bring such harm and darkness. When the federal government now is bringing up charges against protesters and not charges against the federal agents who shot and killed two citizens on our streets, that just tells you that they’re not seeking justice. They’re just seeking political retribution and political harm.

SCOTT HARRIS: Pastor Paggit, as you just referenced a moment ago, earlier this month, the Department of Justice charged 15 Minnesota residents with conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer after they participated in protest against ICE mass deportation raids in January. Some observers say this is an effort by the Trump administration to criminalize dissent and impinge on free speech. Tell us about these arrests and what’s the buzz about this in the Twin Cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul?

PASTOR DOUG PAGITT: It’s interesting and of the 15 who’ve been charged and they’re likely going to try to charge others. Again, this is the same justice department that at the command of the president pardoned people who attacked and beat police officers in January of 2021. People who literally assaulted federal police officers were pardoned. And these people who chose to follow ICE agents when they’re doing public work on our public streets are considered people who should be charged with crimes for harming officers. One of the questions that was asked when these arraignments charges were announced was what agents were harmed? And there weren’t any. I can tell you a number of citizens who were harmed. I can tell you a number of people who were shot at, who were killed. Can’t name one federal ICE agent who was harmed in the act of the duty. I saw a few of them slip on the ice and fall.

Maybe that was the fault of protesters as well for making these folks have to get out of their vehicles while they run with their masks on. But we don’t know who those federal agents are, Scott, and I’m not just trying to be sassy about this. We literally don’t know who they are because they were unnamed and uncredentialed. No badges, no name plates, no identifications whatsoever. Simply young men with masks on their faces claiming to be federal agents. And I know some of the people who’ve been charged with these crimes, some of them, they want to take it on. They’re like, “Come and get us. Let’s go to court. Let’s bring up the evidence, prove your case.” And I know others are very scared. And not everybody who chose to risk their own reputation, their own money, their own health, their own well-being to go out on the streets and to protect our citizens against a rogue government did it for the same reasons. And not everybody did it with the same level of confidence or of willingness to be pursued again by this federal government.

But that’s what we’re going to get out of the Trump administration. You’re going to get a series of retributions and charges. There’s never been an administration that has pardoned more criminals than this one, yet they want to turn citizens into criminals and criminals into pardoned people. So we’re living in an upside-down world. And look, I’m not being charged. I can’t speak on their behalf, but I am highly confident that when these cases are brought to court, these people will not be found guilty of putting federal agents in harm’s way. And if the federal government wants to try these cases, I hope they do. And when this has to be brought out in court before a jury of these people’s peers here in Minnesota and see how a reasonable person would conclude whether these people are violating the law or are exercising their freedom of speech and their freedom to assemble and their freedom to protest their government and freedom to raise a hearing with their government, I think they’re going to win those cases.

For more information, visit Vote Common Good at votecommongood.com.

Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Pastor Doug Pagitt (14:06) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the related links section of this page. To subscribe to our podcasts, email newsletters, our Trump authoritarian playbook Substack or social media, subscribe here.