The Trump administration is using a law Congress passed in the 1990s after a wave of deadly violence at abortion clinics to prosecute demonstrators and reporters who were at a immigration-related church protest in Minneapolis last month. 

Independent journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort, along with several activists, are accused of violating a 1994 law that made physically obstructing access to reproductive health clinics and places of worship a federal crime. Lemon pleaded not guilty Friday, while Fort is set to be arraigned next week and has denied any wrongdoing. Other plaintiffs have vowed to fight the charges — they’re also accused of conspiring against churchgoers’ right to worship — and maintained they were exercising their First Amendment rights. 

Some abortion opponents say the law should be repealed entirely, even though the statute also protects access to anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers. Reproductive rights advocates say getting rid of the law altogether could spur more attacks on clinics and providers, which already increased in recent years. 

“It would give an even stronger signal to the zealots who would wish to shut us down to intimidate and harm our clinic folks and patients,” said Julie Burkhart, who owns clinics in Wyoming and Illinois. 

The Minnesota indictment is only the second time that the Department of Justice has brought charges under the religious provision tucked in the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. In September, the federal government filed a civil complaint against pro-Palestinian groups and demonstrators, accusing them of violating the FACE Act after they protested outside a New Jersey synagogue in 2024.

During a news conference announcing the charges, Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s civil rights division, said the New Jersey case was the “first time in history” the FACE Act was used to “prosecute an attack civilly on a house of worship.”  

While the Trump administration has started to use the FACE Act in religion-related cases, it has also relaxed enforcement of the law against people who interfere with access to abortion clinics. 

Republican President Donald Trump pardoned 23 anti-abortion protesters convicted of violating the law within weeks of taking office in January 2025, and the DOJ released a memo that stated abortion-related cases should only be pursued in “extraordinary circumstances,” such as death, serious bodily harm or severe property damage. 

“This sent a very clear signal to anti-abortion extremists that this administration was OK and even encouraged anti-abortion violence, and we’ve seen the same people that were pardoned within Trump’s first week in office go right back out and start harassing abortion providers and their patients, whether that is putting together blockades or clinic invasions,” National Abortion Federation President and CEO Brittany Fonteno told States Newsroom. 

FACE Act followed murder of abortion provider, clinic sieges 

Tactics by the anti-abortion movement were starting to reach a fever pitch in the U.S. before the FACE Act’s passage. In 1988, hundreds of protesters were arrested in Georgia during the “Siege of Atlanta,” where abortion opponents staged routine clinic blockades over a three-month period. In 1991, thousands of anti-abortion protesters were arrested by local officials for invading abortion clinics in Kansas during the “Summer of Mercy.” 

“We were literally unable to do our jobs,” said Burkhart, who worked in Wichita that summer with Dr. George Tiller, a provider who was later killed by an anti-abortion extremist. 

In 1993, Dr. David Gunn was murdered by an anti-abortion protester outside a Florida clinic, and six months later, Tiller was shot outside his Kansas clinic. Tiller survived that attack, but he was assassinated at his church in 2009.  

Sen. Ted Kennedy and then-Rep. Chuck Schumer, both Democrats, introduced the FACE Act in Congress alongside former Republican Rep. Connie Morella, and President Bill Clinton signed the legislation the following year. 

Legal experts said the religious part of the reproductive health law was added to broaden legislative support for the bill. 

The law protects reproductive health clinics and places of worship from being physically obstructed or damaged, and makes it a federal crime to intentionally injure, intimidate or interfere with access to those places. Violators face up to a year in prison or a $10,000 fine, and up to six months in prison for nonviolent obstruction. A defendant could face 10 years if they inflicted bodily harm or life behind bars if someone is killed.  

Mary Ziegler, an abortion historian and professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law, said the measure was modeled on other civil rights laws, which typically include protections for religious institutions. She said Congress already had a Democratic majority at the time, but the religious part of the law could have been added to avoid accusations of viewpoint discrimination. 

“Even people who saw themselves as pro-life were disturbed by some of the violence,” Ziegler said. 

After the law took effect, violence against abortion clinics declined by 30%, according to the National Abortion Federation. 

The power of anti-abortion groups like Operation Rescue, known for orchestrating mass clinic blockades, waned. 

“The FACE Act was created to suppress civil disobedience at abortion centers, so it’s had a massively negative impact on the anti-abortion movement,” said Terrisa Bukovinac, the founder of Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising. 

Bukovinac’s group along with Students for Life of America and Alliance Defending Freedom have called for the law’s demise since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the federal right to an abortion in June 2022. 

Trump reconfigures enforcement while abortion opponents call for repeal

Violence against abortion clinics increased after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. From 2021 to 2022, clinics saw a 100% increase in arsons, a 25% increase in invasions and a 20% increase in death threats or threats of harm, according to the National Abortion Federation. 

The Biden administration pursued enforcement of the FACE Act by prosecuting people convicted of blocking access to abortion clinics in Michigan, Tennessee and Washington, D.C. 

Trump pardoned all of those defendants. But for some abortion opponents, the Republican administration’s narrow use of the FACE Act does not go far enough. 

“It should be repealed because it’s a draconian law,” Bukovinac said. “There are local laws that address trespass, disorderly conduct, disruptions of churches, and various other violations of statutes, but the FACE law adds the full weight of the federal government in these situations.” 

Ziegler said the law isn’t a trespassing statute, it’s about conduct and obstruction. No legal challenges against the law have held up in court before or after Dobbs, she said. 

“If you’re shooting someone in the head because they’re trying to go to a synagogue or they’re trying to go into an abortion clinic — or you’re threatening to kill them or you’re physically blocking all the entrances — that’s not speech protected by the First Amendment,” Ziegler said. 

Matthew Cavedon, a criminal justice and religious liberty expert at the libertarian CATO Institute, has written that the law may be unconstitutional. He said the federal government has typically defended the FACE Act’s constitutionality based on the Commerce Clause and the 14th Amendment.

“Pro-lifers have made the point that in order to defend the FACE Act under the 14th Amendment, you have to have some sort of federal constitutional right to have an abortion,” Cavedon said. “Back in 1994 when the act passed, the Supreme Court said that you did have that right. It doesn’t anymore. That’s been reversed. So I think that’s a very strong argument.” 

U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican, introduced a bill last year that would repeal the law. The House Judiciary Committee advanced the measure in June, States Newsroom reported. 

Roy did not respond to requests for comment, but during a hearing for the bill, he said he has been criticized by Trump administration officials who wanted to use the law to defend churches. 

“That’s not what my goal is,” he said. “My goal is to alleviate the politicization in the first place.”

Renee Chelian, the founder and CEO of Northland Family Planning Centers in Michigan, testified before the committee about the importance of the FACE Act and the invasion of one of her clinics during the first Trump administration. 

“Once the law went into effect, the violent blockades immediately stopped. This all ended when President Trump took office for his first term, emboldening extremists to resume their attacks,” she said. 

In August 2020, a group of protesters blocked the entrance to Chelian’s Sterling Heights clinics, preventing patients and staff from entering the clinic. 

“Patients were stuck in their cars, including three women who were coming in for abortions following the detection of fatal fetal anomalies,” Chelian said. One of those patients was losing amniotic fluid and needed to get to her appointment for the second day of her procedure, but protesters surrounded her car and chanted at her, her mother and her husband, according to the DOJ. 

Trump’s decision to pardon seven people who invaded her clinic “left us reliving our trauma and feeling abandoned by the government that is supposed to protect us,” Chelian told lawmakers. 

Last month, the Center for Reproductive Rights sued the Trump administration after the government did not respond to Freedom of Information Act requests about “selective enforcement” of the FACE Act and Trump’s pardons of 23 anti-abortion protesters convicted under the law. 

“This is straight out of the anti-abortion movement’s playbook,” said Sara Outterson, the center’s chief federal legislative counsel. “They know they can’t ban abortion outright in a number of states, so they’ll try everything they can to restrict access to care, including allowing criminals to harass people as they try to go in to get care.” 

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As she sits on her living room sofa surrounded by a large cutout, framed photos and a houseful of other reminders of her son Javon, Andrea Wilson, 41, can’t help but lose hope that her son’s murder will ever be solved. 

“Nobody’s ever going to be held accountable,” she said. “It just feels like no one is going to be held responsible for his murder.” 

It’s been nearly a year since she’s heard from Milwaukee homicide detectives and more than 16 months since Javon, 21, was hanging out with a group of friends when someone opened fire on them. They took him to St. Joseph’s hospital, where he died from a gunshot wound to his stomach. 

Losing her firstborn is bad enough, she said, but not having justice makes it harder.  Wilson is not alone in her struggles. In Milwaukee, hundreds of families share the unenviable bond of having a loved one murdered, with no one held responsible for it. 

Unsolved murders in Milwaukee

From 2020 to 2024, 901 homicides occurred in the city of Milwaukee. Over 350 of those murders remain unsolved, based on homicide clearance data provided by the Milwaukee Police Department. 

The homicide clearance rate refers to the percentage of cases cleared through arrest or because an arrest is impossible because of certain circumstances such as death, divided by the total number of homicides. Clearance rates also factor in murders solved during a calendar year for incidents that occurred in prior years. 

The clearance rate in Milwaukee fluctuated between 50% and 59% from 2020 to 2023. The year Javon was murdered, in 2023, 59% of 172 murders were cleared. 

Last year, when homicides dropped in the city by 30%, the clearance rate rose to 78%. Unsurprisingly, the clearance rate was lowest during the peak of the COVID pandemic when the number of homicides exploded in Milwaukee. 

Javon’s story

Javon was a fast talker and good kid who excelled at wrestling and other sports in school. He was also extremely bright, graduating from West Allis Central High School with a 3.9 GPA. Offered two college scholarships, he chose instead to attend MATC and pursue his dreams of being a rapper and entrepreneur. 

The day he got shot began like any other. He went to play basketball, came home to shower, and he let his mother know that he was heading out again. 

Then there was a knock at the door, and she learned Javon had been shot and was in the hospital. 

As she arrived, she asked about his condition. 

All the hospital staff would tell her, she said, is that they were waiting for detectives to arrive. 

“I should have realized then that he was already dead,” Wilson said. 

Wilson said her son wasn’t the intended victim but got caught up in someone else’s beef. 

After he died, she said, she called detectives for two weeks straight, even providing the names of potential suspects. 

“It didn’t matter. They called it hearsay,” Wilson said. “I feel like I know who murdered my son.”  

MPD stated that it continues to seek suspects in Javon’s homicide. 

‘There’s no stopping them’

Janice Gorden, who founded the organization Victims of Milwaukee Violence Burial Fund 10 years ago, said it’s common for mothers to conduct their own investigations in their loved one’s murder. 

“Sometimes they have way more information than the detectives do,” she said. 

Sadly, she said, many become consumed with trying to solve the murder themselves. 

“They drive themselves crazy trying to find answers to who killed their loved one,” she said. “I try to help but I can’t. I just listen to people like that because there’s no helping them. There’s no stopping them.” 

Since Javon’s death, Wilson said she’s gone through thousands of emotions, one of them being severe depression. Her mother, who helped raise Javon, her first grandson, is equally devastated. Javon also had a special bond with his little brother Shamus, who’s 8 years old. 

Shamus keeps a large cutout of Javon’s high school graduation photo in his bedroom and even grew out his hair to mimic his brother’s dreadlock hairstyle. Wilson said Shamus has struggled with anger issues since his big brother was killed.

“He doesn’t know how to adjust his emotions,” she said. “It’s been a very downward spiral for all of us.” 

‘I never knew it would happen to me’

Like Wilson, Brenda Hines knows the pain of losing a son to gun violence. 

Her middle child, Donovan, 23, was shot and killed while driving a car near North 29th Street and West Hampton Avenue in 2017. His case also remains unsolved. 

Hines said Donovan was never afraid to travel somewhere new without a plan other than to make it. She said she isn’t sure whether her son was killed in an ongoing dispute over a car or whether it stemmed from a woman. 

“I know there were people at the funeral home and at his vigil who knew,” she said. 

Hines has worked as a Salvation Army chaplain since 2014, heading to crime scenes to help other families deal with tragic incidents such as murders. 

“I never knew it would happen to me,” she said. 

Since Donovan’s death, she’s turned her pain into action, opening the Donovan Hines Foundation of Exuberance to honor her son and to help other families by providing mental health, grief counseling and other support. 

She also hosts an annual vigil to honor homicide victims in Milwaukee, part of a national series of events. Many of the families she’s met along the way are also waiting for justice for their loved one’s murders. 

“It really tears the family apart,” she said. “It’s like an open wound that is still bleeding. The tears flow every day.” 

Hines says she can’t tell families she knows exactly how they feel. 

“Every situation is different. But, I can tell them I understand,” she said. 

Solving murders

James Hutchinson, captain of the Milwaukee Police Department’s Homicide Division, said his team of 33 detectives remains committed to solving a case even as the days grow into years. 

“If someone comes in and says we have info on something that happened five years ago, we’ll take that info and follow up,” he said. “From the first two weeks, to a month, or months or years down the line, we’re equally as committed to solving a murder as we were today.” 

Many families, such as those of Hines’ and Wilson’s, question whether every stone gets turned in an investigation. 

“I don’t know if they did their due diligence,” Wilson said. “I don’t know if they care.” 

Hines, who has worked closely with officers during her time as a chaplain, said she respects the challenges police officers face.   

“They don’t have enough evidence,” she said.

Still, she can’t help but feel that more could have and should be done. 

“I’ve met personally with detectives because they won’t call back,” she said. “It’s a bad process.” 

Though it may not be much solace to the hundreds of families in Milwaukee still hoping for justice, Hutchinson said he and the detectives in his unit take each case personally. They know that the victim’s family and friends are devastated by their loved one’s murder. 

“It’s heartbreaking,” he said. “Making a death notification is one of the hardest parts of this job.” 

Hutchinson said resources in his department were spread thin when murders exploded in the city during the pandemic, which increased the challenge of building a case. 

The biggest challenge, though, he said, is that witness cooperation isn’t what it used to be. 

“It’s changed for the worse,” Hutchinson said. “There wasn’t a no snitching campaign back then.”

Wilson admits that witnesses to her son’s murder were reluctant to talk to police. She tracked down suspects on her own and offered those names to officers. That wasn’t enough to warrant charges, police told her. She needed her son’s friends to step up. 

“At this point y’all should tell what happened,” she told them. “Somebody needs to be held responsible.” 

How Milwaukee compares nationally

Thomas Hargrove, founder of the Murder Accountability Project, the largest database of unsolved murders in America, said Milwaukee homicide clearance rates are similar to what he saw nationally, especially during the pandemic. 

Many cities have struggled to solve murders since then. Part of the challenge is resources. 

“When you have enough resources, good things happen. When you don’t, bad things happen,” Hargrove said. “When you have over 200 murders, your system is off.” 

He also said it’s also much harder to get a conviction now than it was 20 years ago, which can create friction between the district attorney’s office and local police. 

Although police might make an arrest in a homicide case, that doesn’t mean that charges will be filed. 

Police, Hutchinson said, only need probable cause to make an arrest. The burden of proof at the district attorney’s office, which files homicide charges, is higher. 

“They have to be able to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said. “Many times we will make an arrest for probable cause, but we can’t get to that level.”

What often happens, Hutchinson said, is that officers will bring a case to the DA’s office or discuss what evidence they have and then have a dialogue about whether more is needed to file charges. 

While that can bring some frustration, admits Hutchinson, it is better than arresting the wrong person. 

“My worst nightmare I would have in the world is to have the wrong person held accountable for a crime,” he said. 

Milwaukee County District Attorney Kent Lovern acknowledges that the work to hold someone accountable for murder can be burdensome on families seeking justice. 

“Obviously there is a significant gap between the evidence needed to make an arrest versus the evidence needed to successfully prosecute a case,” Lovern said. 

The reason for caution and continued dialogue with officers in hopes of building a strong case is because there’s no room for error. 

“We really have one opportunity with a particular suspect to bring forward charges, and we want to get it right. Not only for the person charged, but the victim’s family and the integrity of the system,” he said. 

Regardless, said Hargrove, the more murders that remain unsolved, the worse it is for everyone. 

“The more murders you clear, the more murderers you get off the street, the more the murder rate will go down,” he said. 

Trying to move on

As Hines reflects on the ripple effect her son’s murder has had on her family, she does the only thing she can to maintain hope. 

“I have to have the peace of God,” she said. “He has taken care of the situation. I still get angry but I have to let God take control.” 

Meanwhile, Wilson, who still talks to Javon’s friends regularly, visits his grave monthly, and she threw him a huge birthday bash in May.

She wonders whether it’s time to put away some of his photos. Among them are large poster boards filled with pictures that were on display during Javon’s funeral. 

“I have to admit it is kind of depressing,” she said. “But it makes me feel like he’s still here with me.” 

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For more information

Anyone with any information about murders is asked to contact Milwaukee police at (414) 935-7360. If you wish to remain anonymous, contact Crime Stoppers at (414) 224-TIPS (8477). 

Hargrove urges families of those whose murders have not been solved to request a formal review under the Homicide Victims’ Families’ Right Act. 

It allows for an individual to request federal agencies conduct a review of a homicide case investigation to determine whether it warrants a reinvestigation. 

‘Nobody’s ever going to be held accountable’: Families of unsolved murder victims in Milwaukee fight to maintain hope  is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.