One of the major ironies out of the Minnesota anti-ICE attack on a Baptist church last week is that former CNN host Don Lemon, one of the participants, is being investigated under the Ku Klux Klan Act.

Don Lemon (AP)

This is a law passed after the Civil War making it a federal crime to prevent Black Americans from exercising their basic civil rights.

If that is not enough to worry about, then there is also the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (Face Act).

This law not only protects women seeking an abortion from intimidation but also applies to people’s religious freedom in places of religious worship.

But it is the Ku Klux Klan Act that has brought surprise to some. While it was passed to protect Blacks in the South after the Civil War, it also applies to other races as well.

Lemon, who left CNN in 2023, is Black, as were others in the radical, militant anti-ICE group that invaded and disrupted church services — attended mostly by white people — at the Baptist church in St. Paul last week.

The demonstrators, like Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong’s Red Guards of old, stormed the church in search of pro-ICE supporters, including the church pastor David Easterwood.

The frenzied mob of 30 to 40 demonstrators circled church worshipers and robotically chanted “ICE OUT, ICE OUT, ICE OUT.”

The church invasion dialed up the tension surrounding ICE’s operation in Minnesota, but did nothing to stop ICE from ridding the state of criminal illegal immigrants despite the lack of cooperation from Minnesota’s’ Democrat politicians.

In fact, the video of half-crazed leftist zealots storming a church to protest the deportation of illegal immigrant criminals will come back to haunt the Democrat Party.

No local cops in St. Paul came to the rescue of the churchgoers, nor did they confront any of the demonstrators. However, three of the church invaders have been arrested by federal authorities.

The video of a house of worship being invaded by angry demonstrators who were essentially siding with criminal illegal immigrants over efforts to bring them to justice will surely be played over and over in the mid-term elections.

Lemon, who was more of a participant than a reporter, got into Easterwood’s face while Easterwood tried in vain to invoke the sanctity of the Christian church.

And it was not clear what news organization, if any, Lemon was reporting for, if not making Don Lemon the story and reporting on himself.

Nevertheless, the invasion of the church crossed a line, coming as it did following increased harassment of ICE agents by militant protestors.

Despite the harassment, ICE has scooped up some 10,000 criminal illegal immigrants in the region and apparently has no plans of slowing down.

Which is probably why the U.S. Justice Department was quick to respond.

The following day U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon announced that the department will pursue charges against the church invaders under both acts, but particularly against Lemon under the Ku Klux Klan Act.

She said, “A house of worship is not a public forum for your protest. It is a space protected from exactly such acts by federal criminal and civil laws.  Nor does the First Amendment protect your pseudo journalism of disrupting a prayer service.”

Lemon protested that he had no affiliation with the demonstrators, had no knowledge about the planned invasion, and was there only as a journalist.

He complained that he now was the victim of “violent threats along with homophobic and racists slurs” from MAGA supporters and the right-wing press.

Perhaps he has a point, shameless as it is.

But when you thrust your nasty, threatening mob politics into a peaceful church, you have gone too far.

Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com