ICE arrests Maryland pastor for overstaying visa, holds him in Louisiana

Miami Herald

5 hours ago

BALTIMORE - A pastor from Maryland's Eastern Shore has been arrested by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and transported to a detention facility in Louisiana after the agency said he overstayed his visa.
Daniel Fuentes Espinal, a 54-year-old father of three originally from Honduras, has been pastor of the Iglesia del Nazareno Jesus Te Ama (Church of the Nazarene Jesus Loves You) in Easton since 2015. His family fled violence in Honduras in 2001, when ICE said Fuentes Espinal was granted a visa to remain in the U.S. for six months.
"Fuentes entered the United States on a 6-month visa and never left in 24 years. It is a federal crime to overstay the authorized period of time granted under a visitors visa," ICE said in a statement.
Fuentes Espinal's daughter, Clarissa Fuentes Diaz, was eight years old when she left Honduras with her father and was recently notified she would become a U.S. citizen. She told multiple news outlets that Fuentes Espinal, who also works in construction, was followed to a Lowe's hardware store on the day of his arrest and taken into custody while running routine errands.
Fuentes Espinal was held in Salisbury and Baltimore before being moved to the Winn Correctional Center, a private prison facility used by ICE to detain immigrants in northwestern Louisiana, according to Fuentes Diaz. This facility is about an hour's drive from an ICE detention center in the town of Jena, where Columbia University pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil was held for more than three months.
Fuentes Espinal's two other children were born in the U.S., according to Maryland Matters.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who emerged as a leader among Democrats by visiting El Salvador when Kilmar Abrego Garcia was wrongfully deported this spring, told Maryland Matters that his office has been in contact with Fuentes Espinal's family and is continuing to monitor the situation.
Maryland Reps. Sarah Elfreth and Glenn Ivey, both Democrats, sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, calling for Fuentes Espinal's release. The letter notes that Fuentes Espinal has no criminal record in his more than two decades living in the U.S.
"We believe that the arrest and detention of Pastor Espinal does not reflect this Administration's repeated commitment to arrest, detain, and remove violent criminals," the letter reads. "… His arrest and detention by ICE does nothing to further your state goals of making America safer."
The Maryland Office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations also condemned the arrest, calling Fuentes Espinal a "widely respected pastor" who has tried to obtain American citizenship.
"Detaining a widely respected pastor who has been serving the Maryland community for twenty years while attempting to rectify his legal status sends a chilling message," CAIR's Maryland director, Zainab Chaudry, said in a statement. "We call on ICE to immediately release this pastor and stop wasting government resources targeting immigrants who have done nothing but contribute to our society."
As of Saturday morning, a GoFundMe campaign for Fuentes Espinal's legal expenses and to support his family had raised more than $28,000 of its $40,000 goal.
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