Menendez challenges ICE statement o NJ pastor
By: Mary Ann Koruth
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey
..... There is little clarity on what's next for a pastor from Elizabeth released last week [04/08/2026] by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement from its Delaney Hall detention center in Newark.
.....
ICE said it will continue "removal proceedings" for Colombian native Yeison Cortes Vasquez, a married father of three, who was released on bond by an immigration judge on April 8 [2026] after pressure from elected and faith leaders.
..... Cortes Vasquez was arrested while making delivers for his job in Newark on March 20, [2026] and spent 18 days in captivity at the privately operated 1,196-bed detention center, which has drawn criticism for its conditions.
..... Representative Rob Menendez, whose congressional district includes Elizabeth, said he disagreed with ICE's portrayal of Cortes Vasquez's case, because he had a pending asylum application that was in effect when he was arrested in Newark.
..... A representative for Cortes Vasquez did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
.....
Cortes Vasquez was released from ICE custody on April 8 [2026] "on bond ordered by an immigration judge in New Jersey. His removal proceedings will continue, and he is required to participate in regular mandatory check-ins with ICE to ensure he is abiding by the terms of his reseal," an ICE spokesperson said.
..... "I would disagree with ICE's characterization as a removal proceedings," Menendez told NorthJersey.com . "He had been going through an immigration process when he was apprehended a few weeks ago.
..... "I believe this is a continuation of his prior process," Menendez said. "He had an asylum claim, as i understand it, and there had not been a final adjudication on that asylum claim.
..... Menendez met with Cortes Vasquez after his release.
..... As a "person of deep faith and conviction," he was "keeping steady" in planning the next few months, Menendez said.
..... Menendez said he has visited the detention center six times, and met recently with two people who were detained outside their churches in Union city in Hudson County on a Sunday, about a month and a half ago.
..... "ICE is lawless, he said. "the universe of people in the detention center have no criminal record."
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An ICE spokesperson said, "Cortes enter the United States on January 28, 2016, through JFK airport on a tourist visa, which required his departure by July 27, 2016. He knowingly overstayed his visa by nearly a decade" and "violated" the law.
..... Cortes Vasquez had an immigration hearing scheduled on April 16, [2026] he told his congregation on Sunday during an emotional and celebratory reunion with parishioners at The Gathering Place church in Elizabeth, where he serves as a pastor. he spoke to the congregation in Spanish, with another pastor translating in English.
..... "I'm so grateful," Cortes Vasquez said, in a video streamed during the service. "Thank you to all those I don't even know."
..... He also read aloud a letter to his parish that he had written in detention.
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"He had a plan of hiding notes in his socks and passing them to his pastor so that we could read this letter," said his translator. "I'd written a letter to you on the day of my court hearing thinking that I would be there anther week ... I'm dehydrated with all the crying I've done," he said.
..... His arrest and the detention center's alleged refusal to let visitors give him his Bible, said Menendez and an opinion piece by the Rev. Gabriel Salguero, president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, drew wide critics,
..... Cortes Vasquez was required to buy a Bible form the prison commissary, Menedez said, even though his supporters wanted to provide him with one.
..... "Folks sought to bring him his Bible when they were visiting, and they were denied that request," Menendez said. "the prison only offered for him to have to purchase a Bible through the commissary. That means that the GEO Group, which is being paid over a billion solars, does not even have the appropriate religious texts available for their detainees."
..... GEO Group is the for-profit company
that operates the detonation facility. Religious freedom in prisons is a constitutionally protected civil right.
..... "They don't want the public to know they're detainee faith leaders," Menendez said when asked why he thinks the pastor was released while others remain in detention "I do thing the attention that was brought to the pastor's case undercuts the Trump administrations," which "wraps itself in religion," he said.
..... "We're going to support him every step of the way" as he goes thorough the legal process, Menendez said.