Jin Mingri, the founder of one of China’s largest unregistered churches, has been released from prison and flown to the United States – less than two months after Donald Trump personally urged Xi Jinping to free him.
The pastor, also known as Ezra Jin, landed in Los Angeles on Friday evening, US-based rights group ChinaAid confirmed. He was among dozens of church members detained in October during what Christian groups described as one of the strictest crackdowns on religious activity in China’s modern history.
“Chinese underground church founder Jin Mingri freed from prison after Trump raised case with Xi Jinping.”
“We truly witnessed a miracle and we are feeling so overwhelmed with joy,” Jin’s family said in a statement. They thanked Trump and his administration “for their tremendous leadership” and said they knew “this could not have happened without the direct intervention from Xi Jinping”.
Trump raised Jin’s case during direct talks with Xi in Beijing in May. “He said he’s gonna strongly consider the pastor,” the US president said afterward. Trump also pressed for the release of pro-democracy Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai, who was sentenced earlier this year to 20 years in prison for colluding with foreign forces.
Jin founded the Zion Church in 2007 with just 20 people. It grew into a network of some 10,000 followers across 40 cities. The church was officially banned by the Chinese Communist Party in 2018 after resisting government pressure to install security cameras at its Beijing property. Many of its branch congregations have since been investigated and shut down.
Thirty church leaders were reported to have been detained in the October raids, followed by a similar crackdown against another church in January in which nine people were detained. Jin’s daughter, Grace Jin Drexel, testified before the US Congress in November, and Trump later described her as a “beautiful daughter”, promising to raise her father’s case with Xi.
Bob Fu, founder of ChinaAid, welcomed Jin’s release but noted that “countless” religious practitioners, including eight belonging to the Zion Church, remain incarcerated in China. The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a group of Western lawmakers that includes dozens of UK MPs, said it was “overjoyed” with the news.
China’s foreign ministry has not officially commented on Jin’s case. Christianity is legal in China but worship is only permitted in government-controlled churches. Many Christians shun those and prefer underground groups such as Zion, also known as “house churches”. Jin, a Chinese citizen, is one of the most recognisable faces of that movement.
His release is a rare case of China freeing one of its own citizens apparently in response to US lobbying. In 2024, David Lin, an American pastor of Chinese origins, was released after 20 years following state department intervention.