Pastor Luis Morales Pérez was detained on Aug. 6 at George Bush Intercontinental Airport while traveling to New York with his family. Morales, who is originally from Venezuela, held Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, until the Trump administration ended the program last year. He was released on Wednesday.
Morales said he risked traveling because he didn’t think he would be a target, despite President Trump’s unprecedented immigration crackdown.
“I decided to travel because (the Trump administration) has said that the priority for detention was people with deportation orders, criminals, and so on,” Morales told the Houston Chronicle on Friday. “As a pastor, I’m an honest person. I don’t have a criminal record; I don’t owe the government anything. I have nothing to fear,” he said.
The Texas Conference of Seventh-day Adventists said Morales oversees four churches in the Houston area.
After Morales’ arrest, a spokesperson in ICE’s Houston office said any immigrant whose status has lapsed or who lacks any type of legal permission to stay in the U.S. is a target for removal.
“While ICE prioritizes the arrest of criminal illegal aliens, all those in violation of our nation’s laws are subject to arrest and removal,” the spokesperson said.
Morales has a pending asylum claim and held a valid work authorization when he was detained. ICE officials have said that even though some asylum seekers and other immigrants are given permission to work, employment authorization does not confer legal status or lawful presence.
He has a hearing in immigration court on Sept. 9 and is required to wear an ankle monitor as a condition of his release.
Morales’ arrest continues a trend in Houston and the rest of Texas where ICE agents have cast a wide net and focused efforts on detaining anyone without legal status, regardless of criminal history.
A Houston Chronicle analysis of arrest data from the Deportation Data Project found that from February 2025 to February 2026, ICE agents arrested more than 38,000 immigrants in Texas who did not have criminal convictions or pending charges. ICE arrested about 30,670 people with criminal convictions and about 22,720 with pending charges during the same time frame.
Morales said he’d fight to stay in the United States rather than give up and return to Venezuela.
“Returning is definitely not an option as the conditions in Venezuela grow worse every day,” he said. “Even though (former Venezuelan President Nicolas) Maduro is gone, things remain the same in the country. The reasons I left Venezuela haven’t changed. So now, with God’s help, all that remains is to fight for our asylum application in court.”