A year ago – January 25, 2025, the Department of Justice issued a memo notifying the agency of a change in policy regarding the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. Enacted in 1994, the FACE Act was intended to create limitations on protests happening at abortion clinics, which included assaults on patients and staff, firebombings of clinics, and the murder of abortion doctors. Specifically, the law was drafted to prevent protesters from preventing access or creating an unreasonable obstruction to accessing abortion-related healthcare. In order to pass Congress, a compromise was brokered where the phrase “reproductive health facility” was used instead of any reference to abortion; and religious facilities were added as protected locations to mollify the far-right religious extremists. However, until recently, abortion clinics remained the primary focus of FACE enforcement.[1]
As a result of the Justice Department’s January 2025 change of position, the preexisting policy of focusing on protecting access to abortion clinics is now rescinded. From the memo:
To many Americans, prosecutions and civil actions under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (“FACE Act”) have been the prototypical example of this weaponization [of the federal government]. And for good reason. Even though more than 100 crisis pregnancy centers, pro-life organizations, and churches were attacked in the immediate aftermath of the Dobbs decision, nearly all prosecutions under the FACE Act have been against pro-life protesters. That is not the even-handed administration of justice.
To address this concern and to ensure that federal law enforcement and prosecutorial resources are devoted to the most serious violations of federal law, future abortion-related FACE Act prosecutions and civil actions will be permitted only in extraordinary circumstances, or in cases presenting significant aggravating factors, such as death, serious bodily harm, or serious property damage. Cases not presenting significant aggravating factors can adequately be addressed under state or local law. Additionally, until further notice, no new abortion-related FACE Act actions – criminal or civil – will be permitted without authorization from the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division.
This statement is bullshit considering we defended Florida reproductive justice activists who merely spray painted the outside of a fake “crisis pregnancy center” in a strip mall at night when the place was closed – and they were prosecuted and sent to federal prison for FACE Act violations. More than just rolling back protections for clinic access, the memo is a veritable green light for the extreme anti-choice movement to resume their bloody tactics from the past. The Department has begun using the FACE Act to go after protesters when their demonstrations overlap with “houses of worship.” This is because the FACE Act – the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act – enacted to protect abortion clinics specifically, has a back door that has been swung wide open and unjustly abused.
Since its passage, the law has been used sparingly against protesters at or inside churches. After all, FACE protections only allow bare-minimum access. A person needs to physically blockade access to a protected space or make a true threat of violence before FACE is implicated – very extreme conduct, way outside the bounds of an ordinary protest. Faith communities have not been the center of sustained protest in the same way abortion providers have been for almost 50 years. It makes sense that the number of church-protest cases would be dwarfed by cases involving healthcare providers.
And the so-called “crisis pregnancy centers” are in no way “health facilities,” as Planned Parenthood has well-documented.
The Justice Department has recently been putting this new policy into action with weaponized FACE prosecutions against lawyer and pastor Nekima Levy Armstrong, Chauntyll Allen, and William Kelly following a protest at the Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, where pastor David Easterwood holds a day job as the local ICE field director. Overshadowing news of the protest itself, hilariously dubbed a “church riot” by the administration, was the White House’s racist use of AI to distort Nekima Levy Armstrong’s features in a failed attempt to rob her of her dignity.
Buried behind the headlines is a story about the extreme lows to which the Justice Department is willing to stoop. The government originally sought arrest warrants against 8 people associated with the protest, however, the reviewing judge would only sign off on 3 of the 8. Furious, they demanded a second judge review the first judge’s determination, in a highly unusual legal version of demanding to speak to the manager. A second judge agreed to consider the government’s position later in the week. Believing that wasn’t fast enough, the government attempted to go above that judge’s head to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, which punted back to the judge, essentially asking him, “What is going on here?” His response reveals much about the government’s paltry legal justification for the charges and the extent to which this has stretched the court’s last nerve. After noting that the document he was supposed to respond to had been sealed even from his eyes, the judge noted:
We are scheduled to meet over lunch on Tuesday, January 27. I have informed the U.S. Attorney that I will make a decision about the warrant application immediately after that meeting.
This, however, was not satisfactory to the Department of Justice. It has claimed that there is a national-security emergency. As the Department sees it, if I do not issue warrants for the five additional suspects, “copycats” will invade churches and synagogues this weekend and disrupt religious services. Apparently, the government believes that the arrests of the leaders of the Cities Church invasion – whose arrests have received widespread international attention – will not deter copycats, but arresting five additional suspects will. The government has also argued that I must accept this as true because they said it, and they are the government.
And that is where things stand. The five people whom the government seeks to arrest are accused of entering a church, and the worst behavior alleged about any of them is yelling horrible things at the members of the church. None committed any acts of violence. The leaders of the group have been arrested, and their arrests have received widespread publicity. There is absolutely no emergency.
Everyone can enjoy some pithy legal writing on occasion as a treat, but the true revelation here is that the government is advancing a narrative before the courts that is an outright, provable lie. This is the same communications strategy they used to respond to the recent murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. In each, top-ranking officials from the President down baselessly blamed the victims of the shootings, slandering them in mere hours following their deaths, and presenting the American people with the same types of fabrications they are filing in the courts.
The weaponization of the FACE Act and the willingness of the administration to present open falsehoods as the truth in order to prosecute their perceived enemies should concern everyone. To better equip movement groups and the legal networks who support them, CLDC is developing a resource for communities and lawyers alike to understand FACE Act prosecutions and fight back against government lawfare. Watch this space.
(Re)Sources:
https://www.justice.gov/media/1386461/dl
https://prochoice.org/wp-content/uploads/face_act.pdf
https://www.mic.com/life/the-pro-life-movement-has-always-been-rooted-in-violence-17939008
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2159571/riely-v-reno/?q=860+F.Supp.+693
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/01/beware-government-using-image-manipulation-propaganda
[1] From 2019 to 2025, all FACE prosecutions were brought against anti-choice religious extremists.
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