“ICE Conducts a Fugitive Operation Targeting Criminal Aliens Across Florida” by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Public Domain Mark

Two married Mexican pastors who entered the United States on religious visas that expired more than four years ago were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at McAllen airport last week as they tried to board a flight to a Billy Graham marriage conference in North Carolina.

Nepthali Zozaya Saucedo, 36, and his wife Cinthia Sarai Cardona Otero, 34, serve as assistant pastors at Comunidad Cristiana Emanuel Church in Edinburg, Texas.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told Religion News Service that the couple entered the country legally on February 27, 2022. Their visas expired on July 7, 2022. They stayed anyway for four full years.

Overstaying a visa is generally a civil immigration violation rather than a federal criminal offense. It can nevertheless result in visa cancellation, removal proceedings, and multiyear restrictions on reentering the country.

The pastors were released through ICE’s Alternatives to Detention program. They must reportedly check in virtually with immigration authorities every month and appear in person at the ICE field office in Harlingen, Texas, within six months, according to the Washington Examiner.

Their immigration cases remain unresolved.

Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas publicly took credit for facilitating their release. The same congressman previously helped free a Nigerian Catholic nun, Sister Leticia Ugboaja (Sister Letty), who was arrested by ICE on June 28 while walking to Sunday Mass at Our Lady of Sorrows Church in McAllen in her religious habit.

Cuellar complained that ICE is “going after religious people,” declaring, “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.”

Discretion for people who ignored the expiration date on their visas for four years? That is the Democrat playbook.

Supporters of the pastors, including some Assemblies of God figures, claimed the couple held valid R-1 religious worker visas. DHS rejected that narrative outright and stood by the overstay timeline.

This is not complicated. A visa is temporary permission. When it expires, you leave. Staying makes you deportable under federal law. Title and religious title do not create a permanent exemption from immigration statutes.

The airport arrests come as the Trump administration ramps up enforcement against foreign nationals who entered legally but refused to leave after their visas expired.

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, ICE agents recently arrested an Ecuadorian national as she attempted to board a Southwest Airlines flight at Denver International Airport. DHS said her visa expired in January 2025.

The Gateway Pundit also reported that ICE arrested Southwest flight attendant Lorenzo “Enzo” Thompson while he was working at Nashville International Airport. DHS alleged that the Jamaican national remained in the United States after his authorized stay expired in October 2021.

The message from federal authorities is increasingly clear: Entering the country legally does not give foreign nationals permission to remain indefinitely.