In a development that has drawn international attention, high-profile Chinese underground church pastor Ezra Jin Mingri has been released from detention and arrived in Los Angeles over the weekend to reunite with his family, according to confirmation from his relatives and international human rights advocates.
Ezra Jin was among 18 leaders of Zion Church — one of China’s largest unregistered underground Christian congregations — taken into custody during a sweeping October 2018 crackdown, the largest single action against an independent religious community in China in decades. The detentions sparked widespread international concern over expanding restrictions on religious practice under the Chinese government’s campaign to Sinicize organized religion, a policy that demands all religious groups align their activities with the ruling, officially atheist Communist Party of China’s ideological priorities.
Less than two months before Ezra Jin’s release, former U.S. President Donald Trump raised the pastor’s case during a high-level bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping during Trump’s state visit to Beijing. In comments to reporters on the flight back to Washington after the summit, Trump confirmed he had brought up both the detainment of Jin and the case of imprisoned Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai, noting that Xi had indicated he would give Jin’s case consideration, while calling Lai’s case a more complicated issue. The 78-year-old Lai, a former business leader and publisher of a Beijing-critical Hong Kong newspaper, was ultimately sentenced to 20 years in prison in February 2024 on national security charges.
A written statement released by Jin’s family confirmed the pastor’s release proceeded at an unexpectedly rapid pace, extending public gratitude to Trump and acknowledging that the release would not have been possible without direct intervention from Xi. The family also added a hopeful note to the announcement: “We hope this is a signal of a positive turn for people of faith in China and relations between our two nations.”
International rights organizations have welcomed Jin’s release while urging further action on remaining detentions from the 2018 crackdown. “At least 8 members of Zion Church remain detained in China,” Maya Wang, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, wrote in a public post on X. “They should all be freed.”
Unregistered house or underground churches like Zion operate outside China’s state-mandated religious framework, which requires all organized religious worship to take place in government-registered congregations. For years, Zion Church had operated independently in adherence to the founding principle that the church should answer only to religious authority rather than state oversight, a position that has repeatedly put it at odds with Chinese authorities. Ezra Jin had relocated his immediate family to the U.S. after a prior crackdown targeted the congregation in 2018, but he chose to return to China to continue leading the church despite well-documented risks. In November 2024, his daughter Grace Jin Drexel, a U.S. resident, told a U.S. congressional committee that she had not seen her father in six years ahead of his October 2024 detention.
As of Saturday, the White House had not issued an immediate formal response to requests for comment on Jin’s release. The report was compiled by correspondent Moritsugu with contributions from Washington-based reporter Will Weissert.