Has Cities Church or David Easterwood issued an official statement confirming or denying the identity overlap with the ICE field office director?

1. The public claim that set off protests

Social media posts and livestreamed protests alleged that a pastor listed on Cities Church’s leadership page — David Easterwood — is the same David Easterwood named in federal court filings and ICE records as the acting Field Office Director in St. Paul, and that realization prompted activists to interrupt services and chant against ICE tactics ^{[7] [1] [8]}. Reporters and organizers point to the shared name, photographs compared online, and references to Easterwood in ICE court filings as the basis for the claim, situating the allegation inside broader unrest after the death of Renée Nicole Good during an ICE operation ^{[9] [1] [7]}.

2. What independent reporting has verified about the pieces of the puzzle

Mainstream outlets including CNN, ABC, CBS and local stations have documented that Cities Church’s website lists a David Easterwood as a pastor and that a man named David Easterwood appears in ICE court filings as the acting field office director in Minnesota; some outlets say the personal information appears to match, while still stopping short of an absolute public confirmation of single identity in on-the-record terms ^{[1] [3] [6] [8]}. FOX9 explicitly reported it "can confirm a man named David Easterwood is the acting field office director in Minnesota" but also said it could not confirm whether the acting director is the same individual listed as a pastor on Cities Church’s site ^[5].

3. Requests for comment and the church’s response (or lack thereof)

Multiple news outlets sought comment from Cities Church and reported either no response to phone or email requests or that church officials did not return calls, with some reporters noting they had reached out to the church for clarification ^{[4] [2] [3] [6]}. Hindustan Times, for example, said it reached out to Cities Church authorities but could not independently verify the identities ^[4], while CBS News and ABC reported that the church did not respond to requests for comment ^{[6] [3]}.

4. Public filings and livestreams filled the vacuum left by no official statement

In the absence of an explicit public statement from Cities Church or from Easterwood himself in the cited coverage, journalists turned to court filings, the church website and livestreamed protest footage as the available records; outlets noted that Easterwood’s name appears in ICE filings and that the church lists a pastor by that name, but they emphasized that independent verification of whether those records refer to the same person was not established by direct comment ^{[1] [6] [4]}.

5. Why an explicit confirmation or denial matters and the risks of silence

Reporters and activists emphasize that an on-the-record confirmation or denial would either substantiate community claims about institutional overlap or defuse protests targeting a place of worship, and the lack of a clear statement has escalated tensions and drawn a Department of Justice probe into a service disruption at Cities Church ^{[5] [6]}. At the same time, some outlets caution that visual comparisons and name matches alone are not definitive proof of identity, which is why many reporters sought direct comment that was not forthcoming ^{[9] [5]}.

6. Bottom line

Based on the collected reporting, neither Cities Church nor David Easterwood has issued a clear, on-the-record public statement that explicitly confirms or denies that the pastor listed on Cities Church’s leadership page and the ICE acting Field Office Director are the same individual; journalists report attempts to reach church leaders and note matching names and information in court filings, but the reporting stops short of an official confirmation from the parties themselves ^{[4] [5] [1] [6]}.