According to a statement from his lawyer, Abbe Lowell, Lemon was taken into custody by federal agents on Thursday night in Los Angeles, where he was covering the Grammy Awards.
The arrest is linked to an incident on 19 January, when Lemon entered Cities Church in St Paul along with a group of protesters. The protesters claimed that one of the church’s pastors was an official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). During the disruption, Lemon filmed the protest inside the church.
Lowell said Lemon was acting as a journalist and plans to fight the charges in court.
“Don has been a journalist for 30 years, and what he did in Minneapolis was no different from his work throughout his career,” the lawyer said in a statement shared on Lemon’s Instagram. He added that the arrest was an attack on the First Amendment.
Lemon also defended himself in a video, saying:
“Once the protest started in the church, we did journalism — we reported on what was happening.”
Initially, the Trump administration attempted to charge eight people involved in the protest under a law that protects places of worship from disruption. However, a magistrate judge approved charges against only three individuals, and Lemon was not among them.
The government later tried to overturn that decision, but an appeal
s court rejected the challenge.
Attorney General Pam Bondi previously condemned the protests, calling them “horrific” in a Fox News interview. Meanwhile, Harmeet Dhillon, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said officials would pursue the matter aggressively.
The protests are part of wider unrest in Minnesota following federal immigration enforcement actions, which have reportedly led to violent confrontations and the deaths of two US citizens.
Reacting to Lemon’s arrest, former CNN colleague Jim Acosta wrote on social media:
“This is outrageous and cannot stand. The First Amendment is under attack in America.”