ATLANTA (ABP) — A Hispanic North Carolina pastor is out on bond after the first stage of deportation proceedings against him and is planning his case to avoid getting snared by a 15-year-old crime for which he has already served time.
On Sept. 2, an immigration judge in Atlanta set bond at $15,000 for Hector Villanueva, pastor of a Spanish-speaking Baptist church in Siler City, N.C. Leaders of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina have been soliciting urgent prayer for him since shortly after he was arrested Aug. 19 by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and taken to Gainesville, Ga., to be held.
Linda Jones, missions coordinator for CBF of North Carolina, was present for the hearing. “We got a judge who gets very annoyed with government inefficiency — and some of the government papers were missing,” she said. “So he was very good; they let him out.”
Jones said Villanueva was en route midday Sept. 2 to the jail in Gainesville for final paperwork, and that supporters hoped he would be home in North Carolina by that evening. CBF of North Carolina covered his bail.
The 40-year-old pastor has lived in the United States since he was 3. He is a legal resident with a green card and Social Security card. He and his wife, Martha, a U.S. citizen, have four children and are in the process of adopting two foster children.
Martha Villanueva told an Associated Baptist Press reporter Sept. 1 that her husband has a North Carolina attorney who specializes in immigration, Jorgelina Araneda, advocating for him.
“I just know that my husband has not done anything illegal anytime recently,” she said. “This is a very old case that they brought up and I know that he’s a different person than he was then; he’s changed and I just — I just don’t know what else to say. I just want him home; he’s needed here.”
Martha Villanueva told the Raleigh, N.C., News & Observer a lawyer alerted her husband several months ago that his green card might be in jeopardy because of a "commercial burglary" conviction in the mid-1990s.
He was homeless at the time and apparently tried to cash a check that wasn't his. He became a practicing Christian while in jail and dedicated his life to the ministry. Martha Villanueva admitted that in his former life her husband did some things of which he is not proud.
After moving from California four years ago, Villanueva helped North Carolina CBF Hispanic Leader Coach Javier Benitez start Iglesia Bautista la Roca in Raleigh, one of a dozen congregations that form the state organization's Hispanic Network. He recently started a new church in Siler City.
His conviction surfaced in a background check after he applied for U.S. citizenship. Under current immigration law, any non-citizen convicted of an "aggravated felony" faces deportation, whether or not they have served their sentence.
Jones said Villanueva had several supporters — including members of his congregation and another in Siler City — who traveled to Atlanta for the bond hearing. His next step is a hearing on the merits of his immigration case.
Jones said CBF of North Carolina officials had no official word as of the early afternoon of Sept. 2 on when or where that hearing would take place.