Religious, elected leaders want paster released by ICE
By: Ricardo Kaulessar
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey
..... Religious leaders and elected officials are calling for the immediate release of a pastor detained for nearly two weeks at a North Jersey federal immigrant detention center.
.....
Pastor Yeison Cortes Vasquez of The Gathering Place Church in Elizabeth has been held at the Delaney Hall Detention Facility in Newark since March 20, [2026] said the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, which is calling for his release during holy Week in time for Easter on April 5. [2026]
..... Cortes Vasquez, the father of three young girls, was making deliveries for Walmart when he was picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Linden, reports said. The Colombian native has lived in the United States for over a decade and has been pursuing asylum.
..... "Yeison Cortes Vasquez, an illegal alien from Colombia, entered the United States on January 28, 2016, trough JFK Airport on a tourist visa that required him to leave the Untied States by July 27, 2016," reads a statement to NorthJersey.com from the Department of Homeland Security. The statement goes on to say "Against pour nation;s laws, he knowingly overstayed his visa by nearly a decade and failed to depart. He will remain in ICE custody pending his removal procedures."
..... During a press conference on April 2 [2026] outside Delaney Hall, various speakers called for the release of Cortes Vasquez and discussed the conditions inside the facility.
..... "Today, [04/02/2026] we call, clearly and urgently, for compassion, for dignity, and for the immediate release of our dear brother, Pastor Yeison Cortes Vasquez," said the Rev. Enid Almanzar, broad chair for the Nation la Latino Evangelical Coalition.
..... New York Representative Adriano Espaillat, who visited the facility with New Jersey Representative Rob Menendez, said corset Vasquez was healthy and in good spirits, despite shearing cell with at least six men who were coughing and complaining about poor air quality and bed food.
..... "He is in good spurts, and he has, I believe, led his pastoral commitment there. He's gathered with other men who are imprisoned there, and he is praying on a daily basis," Espaillat said.
.....
Espaillat said it's a "travesty" that not one person he encountered in the facility was there for committing a crime.
..... Delaney Hall, located in an industrial area on the outskirts of Newark, has a daily population of 908 detainees, according to federal data collected by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
..... The Rev. Gabriel Salguero, president and founder of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, said Cortes Vasquez is a "good man and a good father" who is being detained as a result of a broken immigration system under President Donald Trump.
..... "What I know is that this administration said to the evangelical community, particularly in the Brown and Black evangelical community, that they would target violent criminals. what I know is we've been lied to." Salguero said.
..... Menendez said he learned, based on two visits over the past week, that there are currently 800 people detained at Delaney Hall, and only seven full-time medical professionals on staff to tend to them.
..... "There's sick people in there, and they didn't come in there sick," Menendez said.
.....
He also criticized the GEO Group, the prison company that operates Delaney Hall under contract for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, for the conditions inside the facility.