WASHINGTON (AP) — Ezra Jin Mingri was inside a detention center in southern China on the morning of July 3, worrying that he would likely spend at least 15 years behind bars. The 57-year-old Chinese Christian pastor had even previously wondered whether he would live to see freedom again.
In the span of 24 hours, Jin was 15 time zones away, digging into an In-N-Out hamburger in Los Angeles and watching fireworks with his family on the eve of Independence Day, marking America's 250th anniversary.
“It’s so dramatic. It's unimaginable,” the pastor told The Associated Press outside the nation's capital.
He said he was suddenly released after being held since October, then put on a plane to the U.S. after President Donald Trump raised his case with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in May.
“It's a miracle,” Jin said this week.
Jin has led one of China's most influential underground churches, which defy government restrictions by not being registered with authorities. He is an exceptional case of a high-profile Chinese detainee going free following a U.S. request at a time when Beijing's leadership has only become more unyielding to foreign pressure.
Chinese pastor credits Trump for his release
Jin said Chinese authorities released him without forcing him to make a confession or going through a show trial, dropping the charges instead. He said he did not know if there was any deal or swap for his release and credited Trump's “unique diplomacy.”
“It has results,” the pastor said.
Trump, when leaving Beijing in May, told reporters that he brought up Jin's case and that Xi said he would “strongly consider the pastor.” Trump also has vowed to “save our Great Christian population” worldwide.
When asked about Jin's release, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said the country manages religious affairs in accordance with the law. “We firmly oppose interfering in China's internal affairs with so-called religious issues,” the ministry said.
Jin is handed new Nikes and taken on an unknown journey
Jin said he was called suddenly to gather his few belongings, including a Bible, on July 3. He was handed new clothes and a new pair of Nike shoes. He was told he was being moved from the detention center in the southern city of Beihai, where he had been locked up for 266 days.
“Could it be that these people, now pressured, would put me under home arrest?” Jin said he wondered. He had heard from his lawyers that Trump had brought up his case with Xi less than two months earlier.
But he crossed out that possibility when the police van whisked by his old neighborhood and took him to a high-speed train station.
He was escorted into a train car with no other passengers, just police officers, who were recording video. Jin said he still did not imagine he could be freed because China rarely responds to outside pressure and many other Christian pastors and political activists are still locked up.
“I thought they would move me to a secretive place,” he said. A release was “too good to believe.”
He and the officers traveled some 470 miles to the southern metropolis of Guangzhou and then headed to the international airport, Jin said.
A temporary court was set up in a VIP room at the airport, where prosecutors read out a document, the pastor said.
After declaring “criminal evidence solid and criminal facts established,” the lead prosecutor informed Jin of the decision not to indict him on charges including illegal business activity and fraud stemming from running an unregistered church.
China has cracked down on the pastor's church
Jin founded Zion Church in 2007, and it grew into one of the most influential independent congregations in China. They are different from officially sanctioned places of worship, which accept Communist Party rule.
In 2018, authorities in Beijing shut down the church's physical sanctuary after the congregation refused to install surveillance cameras. Jin sent his family to the U.S. but stayed behind to keep developing the church, which met in small groups and gained a strong online following during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In October 2025, Jin and other church leaders were detained in another crackdown.
Pastor gets back his passport and heads to America
At the airport, Jin said he was handed his passport before stepping on a plane. A U.S. diplomat had been waiting for him for hours.
For the nearly 13-hour flight, Jin was too excited to sleep. When he landed in Los Angeles, the pastor said he was welcomed by U.S. officials and given a fee-free one-year visa.
He reunited with his family after a yearslong separation and got to hold his three grandchildren for the first time — the youngest was barely a month old.
His daughter Grace Jin Drexel, who had lobbied for months for her father’s release, said she didn’t recognize him at first because he lost a lot of weight and had visibly aged.
Now free, Jin is working for the release of other Christians
Jin said he would be working to help free the eight other Zion Church members and other Christians detained in China. That includes Wang Yi, pastor of the Early Rain Covenant Church, who is serving nine years in jail.
To that end, Jin met House Speaker Mike Johnson this week, along with relatives of three detained Christians in China.
“I am free in this country, so warmly welcomed, so I am making a special call not to forget that many more are still detained,” he told AP, choking up. “I hope we will continue to strive for them to be free.”
The Republican speaker said Jin's release had bipartisan support. “This is something we all agree on,” Johnson said. “It’s about religious freedom around the world.”
Jin said another hope is for China to legalize independent churches.
“Probably the most important wish in my lifetime is that Chinese churches can be recognized by their own government,” Jin said.
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Associated Press writers Ken Moritsugu in Beijing, Lisa Mascaro in Washington and Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, contributed to the report.
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