David Easterwood, who is listed as a pastor at the Cities Church in St Paul, has been serving as the Field Office Director for ICE in the city.

1. What the reporting actually shows about the name match

Major U.S. news organizations — the AP, CNN, PBS, CBS, Fortune, ABC, the Los Angeles Times and others — report that Cities Church’s website lists a David Easterwood as one of its pastors and that “personal information appears to match” a David Easterwood named in ICE court filings as the acting director of the St. Paul field office, creating a strong public association between the two identities ^{[1] [2] [3] [6] [7] [8] [9]}.

2. Where the uncertainty remains — careful caveats from some outlets

Fox9 explicitly noted that while it could confirm a man named David Easterwood was the acting ICE field office director in Minnesota, the station “wasn't able to confirm acting director is the same David Easterwood listed as a pastor on the Cities Church website,” and some fact-checking pieces stress that the linkage in social media initially relied on name similarity and photographic resemblance rather than an official biographical match ^{[4] [5] [10]}.

3. What behavior and documents tie the ICE official to the public record

The ICE field office director named David Easterwood has appeared publicly in official capacities — including a October press conference with the Department of Homeland Security secretary — and has been named in court filings defending ICE tactics in Minnesota, which are cited repeatedly by reporters connecting that public official to the person listed on the church website ^{[11] [12] [2]}.

4. How activists and the DOJ treated the reported link

Activist groups used the reported identity connection to target a protest at Cities Church, naming Easterwood as the focus for “ICE Out” actions and citing his appearance in litigation; the Justice Department announced an investigation and indicated it would consider charges after protesters disrupted services — coverage that treats the name match as operationally consequential regardless of remaining identification caveats ^{[11] [8] [6]}.

5. Interpretive frames, competing agendas and the limits of available evidence

Newsrooms lean toward treating the pastor and the ICE official as the same person because public-facing details on the church site and in court filings align, but outlets differ in tone: some present the match as established and center the moral and legal questions that follow, while others warn readers that corroboration short of matching government bios, HR records or direct confirmation from the church or ICE was not documented in reporting; those procedural gaps matter because they are where misidentification or conflation could occur amid a charged protest narrative ^{[7] [5] [4]}.

Conclusion: direct answer to the question

Contemporary reporting shows that Cities Church lists a David Easterwood as a pastor and that multiple news organizations found his publicly posted details “appear to match” the David Easterwood who is identified in ICE filings and public events as the acting field office director in St. Paul, but at least one outlet explicitly noted reporters had not independently verified with primary official records that the pastor and the ICE official are the same individual — so the prevailing reporting treats them as the same person while acknowledging limited unresolved verification in some accounts ^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]}.