WASHINGTON — The US Justice Department has said it is investigating protesters who interrupted a Sunday service in the Twin Cities who claimed that a pastor there works for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The disruption of the morning service at a church in St. Paul has become the latest flash point in escalating tensions between the Trump administration and demonstrators in Minnesota.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who oversees the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, announced an investigation within hours, calling the protesters’ actions “desecrating a house of worship and interfering with Christian worshippers.”

“Attacks against law enforcement and the intimidation of Christians are being met with the full force of federal law,” Attorney General Pam Bondi posted to X late Sunday night.

Dozens of people rushed into Cities Church in St. Paul Sunday morning, interrupting the church service and leading to tense confrontations, videos posted by activists and content creators show. The Saint Paul Police Department said it responded after receiving multiple calls reporting up to 40 protesters in the church.

Video showed protesters inside the church chanting "ICE out" and "Justice for Renee Good", the woman killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis earlier this month.

Justice department officials accuse the protesters of "desecrating a house of worship", and say they will investigate them for civil rights violations.

Anti-ICE protests continue in the state against Trump's immigration crackdown, and the Pentagon reportedly placed 1,500 soldiers on standby for possible deployment.

On Sunday, US Attorney General Pam Bondi vowed to exercise the "full force of federal law" against the demonstrators who interrupted the service at the Cities Church in St. Paul, which neighbors Minneapolis.

Protesters say that one of the church's eight pastors, David Easterwood, is a local ICE official.

A person by the same name is identified in ACLU court filings as the acting director of the ICE St Paul field office, according to reporting by the Associated Press and the Minnesota Star Tribune newspaper.

The AP also reported he appeared alongside Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem in Minneapolis at a news conference last October.

In a statement, DHS said it does not confirm or deny the identities of its agents as "publicizing their identities puts their lives and the lives of their families at serious risk".

Monique Cullars-Doty, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter Minnesota and one of the protest organisers, told CBS News that "we can't sit back idly and watch people go and be led astray".

Separately, the US justice department said on Friday it had opened investigations into Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, both Democrats, for allegedly impeding federal immigration operations.

Both Frey and Walz have spoken out strongly against ICE deployments to their city and state.

Anti-ICE protests have intensified there since the death of Good, a 37-year-old mother of three and a US citizen, who was shot and killed by an ICE agent while in her vehicle in Minneapolis on 7 January.

City officials said she was killed while legally observing ICE activities. The Trump administration, however, labeled her a "domestic terrorist" and said the agent who shot her acted in self-defence.

Elsewhere in the city, protests with occasional clashes have persisted at the Whipple building in Minneapolis where federal agents are headquartered.

A DHS spokesperson said on Monday that at least 3,000 people have been arrested in Minneapolis since the deployments.

On Friday, a US federal judge issued an order limiting the crowd control tactics that can be used by ICE agents toward peaceful protesters in Minneapolis.

Meanwhile, an undocumented immigrant has died in custody at an ICE detention centre in Texas, the third such death in 44 days, US media report.

Victor Manuel Diaz, a 36-year-old from Nicaragua, was detained by ICE agents earlier this month in Minneapolis.

"He died of a presumed suicide; however, the official cause of his death remains under investigation," ICE said in a statement. — Agencies