Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Elder Deported by ICE After Detention

When the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Pedro Garcia Luna in April, Manantial de Vida Presbyterian Church lost more than a member. Garcia Luna was a commissioned ruling elder in this Spanish-language Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) congregation in Erwin, North Carolina. His late July deportation has shaken a church where immigration enforcement is not a distant political issue but an everyday, personal reality.

“The hardest part is that we are all immigrants, but still we do the best we can and continue with the work we are here to do,” said Esequias Velasquez, ruling elder, who helps lead the church with his wife, Dina Chuc, pastor and commissioned ruling elder. “We do this in spite of the fear.”

The New York Times reported a recent surge in immigration arrests, with a majority of persons detained who had not been charged with or convicted of a crime. Garcia Luna, 44, said he had no criminal convictions. He lived and worked in the United States for 26 years and had raised his 20-year-old son after his wife left when the boy was an infant.

Garcia Luna described the day ICE detained him: “I only remember that I was on my way to work …. Just before we arrived at the work site, they stopped us and asked if we had documents, and we told them we did not. They immed

Before joining the church in Erwin, Garcia Luna had been a pastor at another Spanish-language church within this presbytery in St. Pauls, North Carolina, according to Jerrod Lowry, general presbyter and stated clerk of the Presbytery of Coastal Carolina. “He assisted at our church and was very active, very loving, very responsible,” said Chuc.

The congregation at Manantial de Vida is close-knit and cares for each other, said Chuc. She said the church is “still vibrant, but scared” after witnessing a deportation of one of their own. Garcia Luna was detained by ICE on his way to work on April 14 and held at a detention center in Georgia for more than three months. In late July, he was deported to Mexico.

“We want people to know we are also being hurt because we are human, but we must keep going.” — Dina Chuc, pastor of Manantial de Vida Presbyterian Church

Garcia Luna said he was grateful to the pastors and members of the church for looking out for him. “Manantial de Vida Church was always praying for me. I will never forget everything they did for me. May God always bless each and every one of them,” he said from his birthplace of Las Choapas in the Mexican state of Veracruz.

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