A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers has urged President Donald Trump to raise the detention of Mingri “Ezra” Jin, a pastor linked to Beijing’s Zion Church network, during an expected meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping next month, according to a congressional letter dated March 24, 2026. Jin’s daughter, U.S. citizen Grace Jin Drexel, said she hopes Trump will push for her father’s release ahead of Easter.
Grace Jin Drexel, a U.S. citizen and the daughter of pastor Mingri “Ezra” Jin, said she hopes President Donald Trump can help secure her father’s release from detention in China during the Easter season.
Jin is described by advocacy groups and U.S. officials as a leading figure associated with Zion Church, an unregistered Christian church network that originated in Beijing and has operated beyond China’s state-run religious system.
In a letter dated March 24, 2026, Senators Ted Budd (R-N.C.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.), along with Representatives Riley Moore (R-W.Va.) and Thomas R. Suozzi (D-N.Y.), led a bipartisan appeal urging Trump to raise Jin’s case when he meets Xi “next month.” The letter says Jin was “arbitrarily detained” on October 10, 2025, alongside other Zion Church leaders, and asks the administration to advocate for their release and request that Chinese authorities allow Jin to leave the country. The lawmakers also urged the use of targeted sanctions and visa restrictions against individuals and entities responsible for severe religious-freedom violations.
In comments published by The Daily Wire, Drexel pointed to what she called Trump’s record of securing releases of detained Americans and others abroad. “This Eastertide season, President Trump has the unique opportunity and ability to secure the release of my father — building on his already impressive track record of freeing hostages — and show that he has not forgotten persecuted Christians,” she said. She added that her father “only wanted what Christians all over the world want: to worship our one and only God freely.”
The Daily Wire also reported that Drexel has said her father’s conversion to Christianity followed the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.
A White House response attributed to principal deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said, “President Trump cares deeply about our great Christians around the world. We do not comment on the president’s private conversations,” according to The Daily Wire.
Drexel testified about her father’s case at a U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom hearing in January 2026, according to a publicly posted USCIRF hearing transcript.
Separately, The Daily Wire reported that another set of arrests tied to Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu began on January 6, 2026, with the church saying at least seven people were taken into custody.
After Jin’s detention in October 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the action, saying: “This crackdown further demonstrates how the CCP exercises hostility towards Christians who reject Party interference in their faith and choose to worship at unregistered house churches.”
