Two married pastors who were arrested at a Texas airport by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for overstaying their religious visas have been released from custody following an intervention from Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), according to a new report.
ICE officers arrested two assistant pastors from the Comunidad Cristiana Emanuel Church in Edinburg, Texas, at an airport in the border city of McAllen late last week. The pair had attempted to travel to North Carolina for a marriage conference put on by the late evangelist Billy Graham’s nonprofit organization.
The church leaders, 36-year-old Nepthali Zozaya Saucedo and 34-year-old Cinthia Sarai Cardona Otero, were supposed to have left the United States by July 7, 2022, and have overstayed their religious visas by more than four years, an offense that makes them deportable by ICE.
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed in a statement to the Washington Examiner that the pair “entered the U.S. on visas on Feb. 27, 2022, and overstayed for four years after their visas expired on July 7, 2022.”
However, Saucedo and Otero are not in an ICE detention facility following their arrests. ICE released the two in a move that Cuellar took credit for, according to Border Report.
“Going after religious people, I don’t think that’s a work of God. With all due respect, I think we got to have a little discretion here when people are in the process,” Cuellar told reporters in a call. “That’s just not right. And you know I don’t believe in abolishing ICE, but I believe in having safeguards and having certain things there for ICE.”
Saucedo and Otero were released under ICE’s Alternatives to Detention program and are required to report in person to the agency’s field office in Harlingen, Texas, in six months and to report to ICE virtually once a month, DHS said.
Cuellar was also personally involved in getting ICE to release a nun who was arrested in McAllen in late June. Leticia Ugboaja is an illegal immigrant from Nigeria who was arrested on June 28 while walking near a church.
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Failing to depart the U.S. prior to a visa deadline is a civil violation of federal law, not a federal crime. However, visa overstayers face automatic visa cancellation, a three-year or 10-year ban on returning to the U.S., and deportation.
Cuellar did not respond to a request for comment.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
