U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested a pastor living in Maryland for over two decades for overstaying his visa. He was transferred to a federal detention facility in Louisiana, where he awaits an immigration hearing.
Daniel Fuentes Espinal, 54, originally from Honduras, was apprehended by ICE officers on Monday in Easton, a town in Maryland’s rural Eastern Shore. The pastor of Iglesia del Nazareno Jesus Te Ama was detained while returning to a construction site after buying materials from a nearby Lowe’s and picking up breakfast at McDonald’s, The Baltimore Banner reports.
In a statement, an ICE spokesperson said that “Fuentes entered the United States on a 6-month visa and never left in 24 years.”
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“It is a federal crime to overstay the authorized period of time granted under a visitors visa,” the spokesperson said.
A GoFundMe campaign to support Espinal’s family has raised over $29,000 as of Saturday morning. The pastor is described as “a beloved pillar of our community.”
“He has been in the U.S. for 24 years, has no criminal record and is known throughout Easton for providing food, shelter, clothing, emergency funds and emotional support to its most vulnerable residents,” the campaign states. “This has devastated his family and traumatized a community that depends so heavily upon him.”
His daughter, Clarissa Fuentes Diaz, told CNN her father was unaware of why he was being stopped and only realized what was happening after a uniformed officer asked for his identification and placed him in handcuffs. Fuentes told her that the officers were nice to him.
Espinal was initially held for a day in Salisbury, then transferred to a Baltimore facility, before being moved to Louisiana on Thursday, where he will be provided with his medication for heart and stomach conditions.
“He is doing a lot better than in Baltimore,” Fuentes Diaz told The Banner. “The nurse in Louisiana was going to provide the medication today.”
While being held at the Baltimore ICE Field Office, Espinal spent the night on a bench in a holding room. His daughter said there were no beds. He reportedly experienced joint pain due to the temperature and lack of rest.
Since being transferred to Louisiana, the pastor has continued to minister to those around him, including ICE agents, according to his family.
Espinal has no prior deportation orders and no criminal record, the family says. They are now working with an attorney to request a bond. More than a dozen letters from community members have been submitted in support of Espinal for any future court proceedings.
The arrest has deeply affected his wife and three kids, the youngest of whom is 18.
Fuentes Diaz described her mother as too distraught to eat or sleep, saying she was consumed by concern over whether her husband had access to food and medical care while detained.
Espinal fled poverty and violence in 2001 and arrived in the U.S., hoping to build a safer life for his family, according to family members. His daughter said relatives had been killed back home and that the country’s instability left her father with little choice but to leave.
In Maryland, he initially worked in construction and later drew on his religious background as a former youth minister in the Catholic Church to join the local Nazarene church in 2010. He was appointed pastor five years later.
Though Espinal’s visa had long expired, his family says he was trying to legalize his status. Fuentes Diaz was in the process of becoming his sponsor for a green card and had been waiting for her interview date when her father was arrested.
The pastor’s congregation, where he has led services since 2015, is reeling.
Church member Sandra Perez told The Baltimore Banner she first met Espinal when she arrived from Guatemala 10 years ago and has come to admire his leadership and compassion.
“I have learned a lot from him, and I have seen his great work in the congregation as well as in the Easton community, and it has been very sad that they have arrested him,” she was quoted as saying. “He is not a criminal. His work as a person, father and pastor is necessary for the congregation.”
Espinal’s case is one of many immigration arrests that have increased across the country this year as the agency pushes to fulfill President Donald Trump’s campaign vow for mass deportations and border security.
Some Evangelical immigration advocates warned that mass deportations would “directly impact” churches in the U.S., especially immigrant-heavy congregations. In April, a coalition of Christian organizations — including the National Association of Evangelicals and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Department of Refugee and Migration Services — estimated that about 80% of the 10 million illegal immigrants who could be at risk of deportation from the U.S. are Christians.
Maurilio Ambrocio, an Evangelical pastor in Florida who led the 50-member Iglesia de Santidad Vida Nueva and ran a landscaping business, was detained in April by ICE officers despite having complied for over a decade with the conditions of a stay of removal that allowed him to remain in the country after entering illegally. He was deported to Guatemala this month after living in Florida for 20 years.
Last month, an Iranian pastor in Los Angeles said five members of his congregation were detained by federal agents, including one couple seeking asylum from Iran. The arrests were confirmed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which claimed the “two Iranian nationals unlawfully present in the U.S.” and were both “flagged as subjects of national security interest.”
