Harmeet Dhillon addressed concerns over judicial impartiality, immigration enforcement, and protections for houses of worship following a recent incident involving the disruption of a church service, arguing that conflicts of interest and misleading legal claims have put law enforcement officers and religious Americans at risk.
Dhillon said the issue centers on a magistrate whose spouse has publicly supported actions and statements by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison related to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the state’s legal challenge against federal authorities.
“They’re married. So he’s married to his wife, Caitlin. Caitlin has reposted and liked Keith Ellison’s trashy comments about ICE and about the state of Minnesota, suing the United States to enjoin our ICE officers from being able to do their jobs, putting them in danger,” Dhillon said.
Dhillon noted that the Department of Justice recently prevailed in the legal dispute involving ICE operations in Minnesota, allowing officers to continue their enforcement duties.
“We’ve won a round in that lawsuit at the Department of Justice. The Eighth Circuit has put an administrative stay on the lower court’s ruling and allowed the ICE officers to go about their business,” she said.
She also criticized Ellison’s public statements following the church disruption, particularly his interpretation of federal law governing protections for religious institutions.
“But on top of that, after this incident occurred on Sunday, Keith Ellison went out there and openly said that the FACE Act does not apply to attacks on houses of worship. It only protects abortion clinics,” Dhillon said.
Dhillon said that the interpretation was incorrect and misleading.
“This is either illiterate or deliberately deceptive, and maybe both, maybe both,” she said.
“But you know, the thing is, when you’re either a prosecutor, like I am, or you are a judge, you have to recuse yourself to avoid not only actual bias, but also the appearance of impropriety,” Dhillon said.
“There is definitely the appearance of impropriety here when a magistrate refuses to honor those requirements.”
Dhillon said the matter is still in its early stages but made clear that further legal action is forthcoming related to the church disruption.
“And so here we are, but we are just at the beginning of this process,” she said.
She concluded by vowing accountability for those involved in interrupting religious worship, including members of the media who participated in the incident.
“I intend to identify and find every single person in that mob that interrupted that church service in that house of God and bring them to justice, and that includes so called journalists who participated in harassing Americans at worship,” Dhillon said.
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