The Justice Department on Monday filed a civil complaint under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act against pro-Palestinian demonstrators accused of violently disrupting a Jewish memorial service in New Jersey last year, marking what officials say is the first time the statute has been used to protect a house of worship.
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon announced the case Monday, stating prior department leaders, including some within the Biden administration, had failed to apply the law evenly, as Congress intended.
The Trump administration “stands against antisemitism, against political violence, and for the lawful free exercise of religion,” Dhillon said. “Violence and intimidation directed at synagogues are attacks on an entire faith community.”
The lawsuit stems from an incident on Nov. 13, 2024, in West Orange, New Jersey, where dozens of demonstrators descended on Congregation Ohr Torah, shouting antisemitic slogans and blasting vuvuzelas to drown out a Torah service. The event had been relocated from a private residence to the synagogue following threats from pro-Hamas activists.
The complaint alleges that defendants Altaf Sharif, Jane Doe, and Eric Kamens interfered with religious worship by engaging in threatening and physically aggressive behavior.
At one point, Kamens allegedly pointed at a Jewish attendee and shouted, “The Jew’s here,” and Sharif then allegedly placed the man in a chokehold for over 20 seconds despite police ordering the crowd to leave, Dhillon explained during a press conference.
“This is obstruction of religious worship,” Dhillon said, noting that the FACE Act explicitly covers access to houses of worship, though it had never been used that way until now. “I believe in applying our federal civil rights laws as they were intended to be applied.”
The FACE Act has historically been used to prosecute individuals who block access to abortion clinics or threaten reproductive health providers, but it also applies to houses of worship. Critics of the law say that past administrations have disproportionately relied on the statute to pursue civil or criminal claims against anti-abortion protesters, especially in the wake of violence, threats, and vandalism reports at crisis pregnancy centers following the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Dhillon emphasized that Monday’s lawsuit is a civil action seeking an injunction against the defendants, but left open the possibility of future criminal charges. “We’re not ruling out criminal charges in this case… not only under the FACE Act, but potentially under other laws,” she said. The injunction would bar the defendants from harassing Jewish worshippers at the synagogue.
The DOJ’s decision to invoke the FACE Act in defense of Jewish worshippers reflects a broader rebalancing in how the statute is enforced. The law, passed in 1994, was used aggressively under the Biden administration to crack down on anti-abortion activists.
The Trump DOJ has signaled that reversing Biden-era prosecutions under the FACE Act is a top priority, while some Republican lawmakers have sought to repeal the statute altogether over allegations of its weaponization.
Among its first actions in January, the DOJ issued pardons to 23 anti-abortion activists, including Lauren Handy and Eva Edl, the latter an 89-year-old concentration camp survivor convicted under the law for blocking access to a Michigan abortion clinic.
In a sit-down interview with the Washington Examiner in July, Dhillon distanced herself from talks among some Republicans in Congress to repeal the FACE Act, noting it is not the DOJ’s place to take a position on whether the law itself should exist. Rather, she vowed to apply the statute back to its original, even-handed intent.
“It’s an important law as well, and so we aren’t going to be criminalizing speech that doesn’t rise to the level of interference,” she said. “There is a cultural shift that has to happen outside the building, but inside the building, we’re not going to be abusing those laws now.”
HARMEET DHILLON: CIVIL RIGHTS BEING REBUILT AFTER ‘CULTURAL SHIFT’ UNDER TRUMP
Asked Monday whether abortion-related FACE Act cases would still be pursued, Dhillon clarified that the law still applies to “all types of healthcare facilities,” including crisis pregnancy centers — but that the DOJ would only act in cases involving clear threats or violence, not peaceful protest.
“We’re going to use the FACE Act in all of its intended applications,” Dhillon said. “That includes access to clinics, crisis pregnancy centers, and now, for the first time, houses of worship.”
