A prominent underground church pastor who was imprisoned in China has been freed and has arrived back in the United States, according to human rights advocates — a development that comes less than two months after President Donald Trump personally raised the issue with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri, leader of the underground Zion Church, touched down in Los Angeles on Saturday. Frances Hui of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation announced the news on X, writing that the pastor “is finally reunited with his family.”
The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, an organization made up of Western lawmakers, also confirmed his release and posted a photograph showing the pastor alongside his daughter, Grace Jin Drexel, with both of them smiling.
The case drew widespread attention after Trump, at the conclusion of his state visit to Beijing in May, revealed that he had brought up Jin’s situation directly with Xi. Trump said the Chinese leader indicated he would take the matter seriously.
Jin had been among 18 church leaders detained back in October, in what advocates described as one of the most significant crackdowns on a single church in China in decades. The mass arrests sparked deep concern about Beijing’s intensifying efforts to restrict religious freedom.
