What Actually Happened in Minneapolis
Thirty more people charged. That's the tally now coming out of the Department of Justice following the protest at a Minneapolis church where activists physically blocked federal immigration agents from doing their jobs. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the charges this week, and the left has responded with the usual theater — comparisons to the civil rights movement, invocations of religious liberty, photographs of clergy in handcuffs.
Cut through it. Here's what happened: federal law enforcement officers arrived to execute a lawful arrest. A group of people, organized and coordinated, physically positioned themselves to prevent that arrest. They did this inside a church, apparently believing that the building's religious designation created some kind of legal force field that federal warrants couldn't penetrate.
It doesn't. And it never has.
The church-as-sanctuary concept has romantic historical roots. Medieval English law. Underground railroads. Cold War refugee politics. But romantic history doesn't override federal statute in 2025, and the people who organized this action knew that. They weren't confused about the law. They were betting that the optics of arresting protesters outside a church would make the Justice Department flinch. Under the previous administration, that bet would have paid off. Under this one, it didn't.
Religious Liberty Does Not Mean What These Protesters Think It Means
The religious liberty argument being floated by the protesters and their legal defenders deserves direct engagement, because it's genuinely being made and genuinely wrong. The claim goes: a church's decision to offer sanctuary is an exercise of religious conviction, and the government compelling compliance with immigration enforcement inside a house of worship violates the Free Exercise Clause.
This argument fails at every level.
First, the Free Exercise Clause protects religious belief and religious practice. It does not protect the harboring of individuals subject to federal warrants. The government isn't telling these churches what to believe or how to worship. It's telling them they can't use their physical premises to obstruct law enforcement. Those are categorically different things. A church that decided its theology required it to store stolen goods on church property would not be protected from a search warrant by citing the First Amendment. This is no different.
Second — and this is the part the progressive press consistently omits — the individuals being shielded had, in many cases, prior criminal records beyond their immigration status. This wasn't a mass roundup of undocumented day laborers with no criminal history. ICE showed up with specific warrants for specific individuals. The protesters blocked those warrants without knowing or caring about the underlying facts. That's not principled sanctuary. That's reflexive obstruction dressed in clerical robes.
Third, the religious liberty argument is being deployed selectively in ways that would embarrass the people making it if applied consistently. The same progressive legal community arguing that churches have a First Amendment right to shield immigration fugitives has spent years arguing that Christian bakers, florists, and photographers have no First Amendment right to decline participation in ceremonies that violate their convictions. The principle being asserted here isn't religious liberty. It's preferred-religion liberty. Left-leaning churches get protection. Right-leaning believers get sued.
The Thirty and the Precedent They're Setting
Thirty people charged is a significant number. It sends a message that needs to be sent: federal law enforcement will not be vetoed by self-appointed sanctuary committees. The prior administration's reluctance to prosecute these cases created an incentive structure that made obstruction essentially cost-free for activists. Show up, link arms, get filmed, post it online. No consequences. The next protest gets bigger.
Bondi has changed that calculus. And predictably, the people who benefited from the previous laxity are furious. They're calling it an attack on religious freedom. They're calling it political retaliation. They're calling it an attempt to intimidate the faithful.
What they're not calling it is what it is: the enforcement of laws that were passed by elected representatives and apply equally to everyone.
There's a legitimate debate to be had about immigration policy. About the scale of deportations. About which enforcement priorities make sense. About what a humane but functional border regime looks like. This publication has engaged those debates seriously and will continue to. But that debate happens in legislatures and courtrooms, not in the vestibule of a Minneapolis church where activists have decided unilaterally that their moral calculus supersedes federal law.
When citizens begin selectively enforcing which laws they'll allow the government to execute, based on their own political preferences, you no longer have rule of law. You have rule of whoever shows up with the most cameras.
The thirty people facing federal charges made a choice. They made it with their eyes open. The Justice Department charging them isn't persecution. It's the legal system functioning exactly as designed.
The church's role in American civil life is irreplaceable. Sacred, even. But sacred institutions don't become extralegal zones by virtue of their holiness. The cross over the door doesn't change what's inside. And 30 federal charges say the government finally agrees.
