YEONSOO GO, the daughter of an Episcopalian priest in New York, has been released from immigration detention in the United States after widespread protests followed her arrest last week.
Ms Go, who is 20, had been detained after a routine hearing in Manhattan as she applied to convert her current visa to a student visa. Her lawyer said that her current visa did not run out until December, although the Department of Homeland Security said that it had expired two years ago.
Ms Go, a student at Purdue University, Indiana, was reunited with her mother, the Revd Kyrie Kim, outside the detention facility in Louisiana. She had been living with her mother in the US after moving from South Korea to New York in 2021.
The diocese of New York held a vigil in Manhattan calling for Ms Go’s release, at which the Bishop of New York, the Rt Revd Matthew Heyd, said: “We call for the end of weaponisation in our courts. We stand up for a New York and a country that respects the dignity of every person.”
The Primate of Korea, the Most Revd Onesimus Dongsin Park, also called for her release: “We urge the prompt release of Ms Go and call for a fair and transparent review of her immigration status in a manner that upholds human dignity and the values our nations share.”
He said that the US “has long been a symbol of liberty, justice, and opportunity, and a trusted partner of Korea”.
On her release on Monday, Ms Go said that she was “so grateful for the support” during her five days of detention.
Her mother, Ms Kim, was the first woman ordained in Seoul diocese. She now works in the Asian-ministries department of the diocese of New York.
After her daughter was detained, she told reporters that she had “been active in protecting the rights of Korean immigrants through the New Sanctuary Coalition, but I never imagined my own family would become a target”.
On the same day as Ms Go was arrested and detained in New York, Elizabeth “Ketty” De Los Santos, a parishioner of another Episcopal church — St Bartholomew’s, White Plains — was also arrested. Mrs De Los Santos, a 59-year-old grandmother from Peru, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents after a routine asylum hearing in the same location as Ms Go.
Her priest, the Revd Este Gardner, said that conditions in the Louisiana detention centre where she was being kept “are terrible” and that she was under pressure to sign self-deportation papers. She said that Mrs De Los Santos had fled to the US after being threatened in her home country.
In a social-media post responding to Ms Go’s release, Bishop Heyd said: “Prayers answered. Grateful for incredible organizing & advocacy by so many. It worked and Ketty and countless others remain in detention. We call for dignity, compassion & care to be at the center of our immigration system and our courts. We rejoice. And we continue.”
There are currently 56,579 immigrants in ICE custody, according to the latest available data compiled by NBC News. Since President Trump took office in January, ICE and US Customs and Border Protection agents have been arresting immigrants at courts, workplaces, and other public and private places nationwide.
In the New York City area, more than half the detained immigrants have been arrested, after going to federal immigration offices or immigration courts for routine appearances, according to data compiled by the New York Times and reported by the Episcopal News Service.
Between January and late June, at least 2365 immigrants in metropolitan New York were arrested.
