Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri released from Chinese prison weeks after U.S. President raised case with Xi

A Chinese prison pastor from the underground Zion Church was released and returned to the United States this weekend, rights advocates and family members said, less than two months after U.S. President Donald Trump raised the case during a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing. The pastor, Ezra Jin Mingri, arrived in Los Angeles on Saturday, according to statements shared by advocates on social media.

Frances Hui of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation said Jin was “finally reunited with his family.” The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a group of lawmakers, also reported his release and shared a photo showing Jin with his daughter, Grace Jin Drexel, smiling, according to the accounts posted publicly.

Jin’s case drew international attention after his detention in October. Rights advocates said he was detained along with 17 other church leaders in what they described as one of China’s largest crackdowns on a single church in decades, highlighting concerns among religious freedom monitors about Beijing’s enforcement of rules governing unregistered religious activity.

During Trump’s trip to Beijing in May, he told reporters he had raised Jin’s detention with Xi, alongside the case of imprisoned Hong Kong activist Jimmy Lai. Trump said Xi indicated he would give “serious consideration” to Jin’s situation, while Lai’s case would be “a tough one,” according to statements reported at the time.

In a family statement cited by advocates, Jin’s release occurred “very suddenly” and the family thanked Trump. The statement said the family believes the release could not have happened without Xi’s direct intervention, and it expressed hope that the outcome could be a positive shift for people of faith in China and for U.S.-China relations.

Despite Jin’s release, advocates said other members of the Zion Church remain in detention. Human Rights Watch representative Maya Wang wrote that at least eight members were still held, and urged that all remaining detainees be freed, according to her post cited in the reporting.

U.S. officials did not immediately provide additional details about the detention or release process. The timing nonetheless underscores how individual cases raised through high-level diplomatic engagement can produce near-term outcomes, while also leaving open questions about the status of other detained religious figures and the scope of China’s enforcement actions.

For Jin and his family, the immediate focus is reunification after months in custody. For rights advocates, the next step is continuing to press for the release of other Zion Church members still held in China, while monitoring whether any broader changes follow the reported report from Beijing.