ICE

Local and federal authorities are investigating after a group of anti-ICE protesters crashed a Minnesota church service ... and one of the demonstrators tells TMZ she'd still do it all over again.

Here's the deal ... the DOJ and local police are investigating after protesters interrupted a service at the Cities Church in St. Paul ... which is getting major headlines because Don Lemon was in the mix live-streaming the incident.

Chauntyll Allen, leader of Black Lives Matter Twin Cities, who was among the group, tells TMZ … the jarring protest inside the church was necessary to make clear to the parishioners that having a pastor who is also an ICE official is unacceptable.

Don Lemon is apparently in the DOJ's crosshairs after he was covering a group of ICE protesters who interrupted a church service in Minnesota's Twin Cities ... and at least one parishioner wants them all charged.

Here's the deal ... The former CNN host -- now an independent journalist -- live-streamed from Cities Church in St. Paul, MN, where a bunch of demonstrators interrupted the Sunday service to protest the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the state. One of the pastors is allegedly an ICE official.

Cities Church parishioner Caleb Phillips tells TMZ … the protesters rocked the church and scared the hell out of a lot of good people … but ultimately, they accomplished nothing.

The St. Paul Police Dept. has opened an investigation after anti-ICE protesters crashed a church service ... and Don Lemon may be ensnared.

St. Paul police tell TMZ … the department is actively working the Sunday incident as a disorderly conduct investigation.

Due to the open case, police declined all other questions ... including whether Lemon was exempt from the investigation.

2:46 PM PT -- A DHS spokesperson tells TMZ ... “Fearing for their lives and the safety of others, agents grabbed his arm, but he broke free. The agents struck, and he immediately dropped a wrench -- a deadly weapon. Agents extracted him from the car, but he continued to violently resist arrest including grabbing an agent’s throat. This alien was ultimately arrested for aggressive driving, fleeing from law enforcement, and physically resisting arrest. Reminder obstructing law enforcement is a federal crime and a felony.”

As Customs and Border Protection officers swarm a man to arrest him in Minnesota, one agent repeatedly knees him in the head and face ... and it's all on video.

Footage out of Minneapolis shows a scrum of Border Patrol agents detaining a man in the middle of a busy street, piling on top of him ... and at one point during the struggle, one agent is seen smashing his knee into the guy's face. Another of the agents appears to notice they're on camera, and seems to check his colleague, who delivers a last blow to the man's forehead.

Renee Good -- the woman shot to death by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent  in her SUV on Jan. 7 -- was pumped full of bullets in various parts of her body, according to a new report.

Good was struck 4 times in the chest, arm and head when ICE agent Jonathan Ross pulled out his gun and fired into the SUV as Good was trying to drive away on a residential street in Minneapolis, the Minnesota Star Tribune said, citing a fire department incident report.

Earlier media accounts stated Good was hit 3 times during her tense encounter with ICE agents, who were conducting an enforcement operation in the neighborhood.

President Donald Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in response to ongoing protests over ICE activity in the state of Minnesota.

The Insurrection Act has not been used in more than three decades -- last employed during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. President George H.W. Bush sent troops to the city at California Governor Pete Wilson's request following unrest in the wake of four LAPD officers being acquitted of police brutality in the videotaped beating of Rodney King.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has not requested federal assistance ... quite the opposite. He has called for ICE and CBP personnel to leave the state.

POTUS posted on Truth Social Thursday morning ... "If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State."

The Insurrection Act allows the President to deploy the military and federalize state National Guard forces in limited circumstances.

Before 1992, it was utilized during a civil rights dispute in 1957 in Arkansas, and during the Civil War and Jim Crow eras.

This isn't the first time Trump's threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act ... he floated the idea of invoking the act in October on cities like Portland and Chicago.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents got a heated reception upon entering a restaurant in Minnesota ... with customers screaming profanities at them and demanding they get out.

Video of the wild interaction this week has surfaced online ... beginning when agents storm into Cancun Mexican Grill & Cantina in St. Paul, MN and head for the bathroom.

It doesn't look like they need to use the little federal agents' room either ... it seems they're searching for someone -- because they walk right back out into the restaurant after a quick look around.

Journalist Laura Jedeed should be considered a domestic terrorist, according to the Donald Trump administration's warped metric ... but she tells "TMZ Live," she was hired by ICE anyway!

This is a wild story ... Laura was curious about how diligent the Dept. of Homeland Security is about screening ICE candidates during the agency's current hiring surge ... so she took a skills-based resume to a jobs event to find out how she'd fare.

Despite maintaining an online portfolio chock-full of Trump hate and anti-ICE sentiment, Jedeed -- who says she has her own page on an Antifa watch website -- passed ICE's shoddy screening process with flying colors.

Jonathan Ross -- the ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good while she was behind the wheel of her car in Minneapolis last week -- reportedly suffered internal bleeding from their confrontation ... according to Trump administration officials.

Two unnamed U.S. officials told CBS News Ross sustained an injury to his torso, but did not divulge how extensive the bleeding was. The Department of Homeland Security confirmed the report of the injury, CBS News reports.

As you know ... Ross shot Good in traffic on a residential street in Minneapolis on January 7. Good appeared to try to drive away from the scene as ICE officers ordered her out of her Honda Pilot. Ross, standing at the front of her vehicle, fired shots at Good, fatally striking her in the head. Video appears to show physical contact between Ross and the vehicle.

Tuesday night, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told Fox News Digital ... "There is currently no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation." The incident was being investigated by the FBI ... the bureau excluded Minnesota state investigators from the case last week.

Joe Rogan's not the kind of guy to mince words about tough topics, and he made his views on ICE's methods clear -- comparing their tactics to what Gestapo police did in Nazi Germany.

The podcasting giant questioned the agency's tactics, comparing them to the Gestapo's ... the secret police who routinely rounded up targeted groups, including Jewish people and anyone who disagreed with the Nazi Party, during WWII. Rogan was talking with Kentucky Senator Rand Paul in Tuesday's episode of the podcast.

Rogan said he thinks a good chunk of the American population is in favor of criminals being arrested, he thinks lots of the same people believed the agency is "operating illegally."

He pointed out many of who've been taken into custody by ICE are innocent Americans who "just don’t have their papers on them." Hundreds of people have been illegally detained at random on streets across the United States, prompting legal challenges in multiple cities.

ICE and CBP officers have arrested more than 70,000 people with no criminal records, NBC News reports.

Rogan discussed the death of Renee Nicole Good, who was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis last week, and said watching video of the shooting was "very ugly."

Rogan questioned whether Good's shooting was justified, as he feels she was trying to drive away from the ICE agents who'd approached her car when she was shot.

"Sinners" writer and director Ryan Coogler turned a night of celebration into heavy reflection ... getting visibly choked up as he called attention to the killing of Renee Nicole Good on a Minneapolis street by an ICE agent last week.

During the National Board of Review Awards gala in NYC Tuesday night, Ryan -- accepting his win for Best Original Screenplay -- didn’t mince words. He explained he was distracted, as his heart wasn’t in New York at all ... it was in Minnesota, where tensions have exploded since Renee was shot and killed last Wednesday.

Federal agents are massively escalating their aggressive tactics in Minneapolis Tuesday as witnesses record absolute mayhem breaking out in the streets across the city ... a week after an ICE agent killed a woman on camera.

Check out this intense video ... masked men are violently forcing their way into a woman's car, dragging her out of the vehicle and flinging her to the ground, despite her and the surrounding crowd's protests.

She shouts ... "I've been beat up by police before. I'm disabled, so I had to go to the doctor up there. That's why I didn't move."

Locals and activists surround the officers as they continued to tackle and apprehend civilians left and right in the chaotic scene.

The federal presence of ICE and Customs and Border Protection agents in Minnesota is intensifying as new video shows agents smashing a man's car window before abducting him from a Minneapolis gas station ... moments before a second man is violently arrested.

"We're trying to get status. Got a Honduran here. We're trying to get status" ... that's the explanation an agent gives as to why approximately a dozen officers are surrounding a Jeep Cherokee in a Speedway.

Watch the video ... they do not "get status." Before they can obtain any information from the man -- who refused to open his car door for the gang of masked men sent to intimidate him -- an agent breaks his window and begins dragging him out of his vehicle.

A GoFundMe campaign benefiting Jonathan Ross -- the ICE agent who allegedly shot Renee Nicole Good to death last week in Minneapolis -- reached over $475,000 in donations as of the Monday after Good's death.

The campaign's organizer is a Michigan man named Clyde Emmons, according to the web page. He wrote he'd set up the GoFundMe, which has a goal of $550,000, "after seeing all the media bs about a domestic terrorist" -- referring to Good -- getting her own GoFundMe campaign.

Emmons wrote Ross' actions were "1000 percent justified" and said funds from the campaign were going to help the ICE agent.

Talk about slipping up on the job ... an ICE agent in Minnesota took a brutal spill on actual ice, went flying -- and yes, the satisfyingly ironic wipeout was all caught on camera!

With tensions already on thin ice in Minnesota following the recent ICE shooting of Renee Nicole Good, one fired-up agent forgot the basics of winter survival ... charging down the street during an immigration raid over the weekend -- only to be swiftly humbled by the slick, frozen pavement, which sent him sprawling.

It’s a hilarious watch -- the agent completely wipes out, lands hard on his butt, and the surrounding protesters instantly break into cheers, reveling in his very public embarrassment.

The Department of Homeland Security has released a new video showing the tense three minutes leading up to the deadly ICE shooting of Renee Nicole Good.

In the newly released clip, Good is seen parking her vehicle sideways in the middle of the street, effectively blocking ICE vehicles from getting through. The move is especially clear in the final minute of the video, where her car is positioned in a way that prevents agents from passing.

The footage shows ICE vehicles slowing and stopping as the situation unfolds, with the standoff building. DHS says the video provides critical context for what agents were dealing with just before the shooting.