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Just when it seemed that things couldn’t get any stranger, the Trump administration has injected abortion law into its efforts to stamp out anti-ICE protests. Last week, Don Lemon, an independent reporter, and two protesters were arrested on federal charges arising out of an anti–Immigration and Customs Enforcement protest at a Minnesota church. One of the key charges involves the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, legislation passed in 1993 to protect access to reproductive health facilities and places of worship. Understanding the law’s past and present reveals how the Department of Justice has repurposed it to crack down on protest that the president opposes.

The FACE Act passed at a time of escalating anti-abortion protest. Abortion opponents had watched as Republican presidents reshaped the U.S. Supreme Court, but abortion remained legal. Frustrations spilled over, and a growing number of Americans joined clinic blockades led by Operation Rescue, a group that sought to shut down abortion clinics. As Time magazine reported, the primary tactic Operation Rescue used was “to jam all entrances to an abortion clinic before the police can muster sufficient officers to begin arrests.”

Operation Rescue members did get arrested but often faced minor charges, like trespassing, before quickly returning to the protest front lines. Most of those who attended these protests were peaceful—Operation Rescue instructed recruits on what it called nonviolent civil disobedience. But the group’s message was that lawbreaking was justified in the name of saving the lives of the unborn.

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That message was hard to contain, and by 1993, anti-abortion extremists were arguing that it was legitimate to use violence against providers. That year saw the first of a series of murders of abortion doctors. Congress responded with the FACE Act, which sought to distinguish peaceful protest and speech (much of which is protected under the First Amendment) from violence, threats of force, and efforts to obstruct access to clinics. Sponsored by Democrat Ted Kennedy and Republican Constance Morella, the law drew inspiration partly from a federal law already protecting “interference........

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