An Eastern Shore pastor who was arrested by immigration agents Monday and taken to Baltimore for processing is in good spirits and is preaching to fellow detainees — but that preaching is now being done at a detention center in Louisiana.
Daniel Fuentes Espinal, an undocumented immigrant from Honduras with no criminal record, was transferred Thursday from Baltimore to the Winn Correctional Center outside New Orleans, a family friend said Friday.
“He’s a remarkably resilient man, and for all of the trauma that he has been subjected to and the stress that’s been inflicted upon him and on his family, he is upbeat and his spirits are good,” said Len Foxwell, speaking for the family.
Fuentes Espinal’s daughter, Clarissa Fuentes Diaz, had been speaking for the family earlier this week, but is now declining interviews for fear of retaliation, Foxwell said.
Fuentes Diaz spoke to her father Thursday before his transfer. Foxwell said. He said Fuentes Espinal’s attorney filed a motion for a bond hearing, which was approved and will take place next week.
Fuentes Espinal, his wife and daughter fled violence in their native Honduras in 2001, when Clarissa was 8 years old, and eventually came to the Eastern Shore where they put down roots and where two more children were born.
Since 2015, Fuentes Espinal has been pastor of Jesus Te Ama Iglesia del Nazareno [Jesus Loves You Church of the Nazarene] in Easton — an unpaid position. He works in construction to pay the family’s bills.
Fuentes Espinal had gone to a hardware store for construction materials for his job on Monday and was on his way to work when he was stopped by unidentified agents and arrested on immigration charges and taken to Baltimore. The family only learned of his whereabouts when he called later that night, as the family was about to file a missing persons report, his daughter said earlier this week.
Fuentes Diaz recently learned that she had been approved for U.S. citizenship, after a 16-year wait, and said both parents had been working to get documentation. “I was going to help my dad and mom get their papers straight,” but that was before her father was arrested, she said earlier this week.
His arrest comes amid a surge in immigration detentions, part of President Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to enact mass deportations if reelected. The pressure to make arrests has led to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents frequenting areas where day-laborers gather, raiding businesses and sites that had previously been off-limits, like courthouses — and, according to critics, engaging in racial profiling to stop people simply for looking Hispanic.
In Maryland, immigration arrests jumped from about 3.7 per day in 2024 to 9.8 per day since Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, according to data from the Deportation Data Project.
While Trump and Department of Homeland Security officials have said their immigration enforcement actions are aimed at removing the “worst of the worst” undocumented criminals in the U.S., only 45% of those arrested this year have criminal convictions and 40%, like Fuentes Espinal, have no criminal charges.
Fuentes Espinal’s case has drawn extensive media coverage as well as the attention of immigration advocates and members of Maryland’s congressional delegation. Foxwell said a gofundme page he set up for the family quickly surpassed its original goal of raising $15,000, and then a second goal of $25,000. As of Friday, it was inching toward a new goal of $40,000, which he said will come in handy if the Fuentes Espinal has to travel to Louisiana.
In the meantime, Fuentes Espinal remains upbeat and is trying to console his family, Foxwell said Friday.
“His exact words to his daughter were: ‘This must be God’s plan,’” Foxwell said.
Fuentes Espinal said he has been ministering to his fellow detainees, both in Baltimore and in Louisiana, Foxwell said.
“A preacher is going to preach, and he doesn’t necessarily need a church to talk about the grace of God,” Foxwell said.
Fuentes Diaz told Foxwell that her father said he’s aware of the coverage his case has attracted, and he is grateful.
“He is a true man of faith who embodies the teachings of Christ each and every day of his life,” Foxwell said. “He is remaining upbeat and resilient under a set of circumstances that would break most other people.”
by Lauren Lifke, Maryland Matters
July 26, 2025
Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: [email protected].
Elizabeth M. S. Hill says
I can not believe the United States has come to masked and unidentified government agents snatching people off the street, a minister and man of God no less. I am mortified at what we have become under this cruel administration. This is not the America, land of the free, that I have grown up in all my life. Where will it end and who will be next? As the later commentary in the Spy reflects, if we say nothing are we complicit? I can stay silent no longer.
Timothy Sullivan says
The former President was also doing deportations. Never was coverage given in newsprint as our current President is receiving. The former Administration let these people in to gather votes.
Now that President Trump is cleaning up the mess left by the former Administration, he is the bad guy.
If money was a problem on getting his citizenship, then why didn’t his followers start a GoFunfMePage, like his daughter has just done?
The Maryland Democratic Congressional Delegates need to look at the problems they as elected officials have caused.
If you want to travel to see your constituents, please use your own money, and not the hard-working taxpayers’.
James Nick says
Re: “The former Administration let these people in to gather votes.
Not quite. The former administration let these people in to make this country’s economy work – to feed the demand for low-paying jobs that Americans simply won’t do. We can rid ourselves of all our undocumented worker in a matter of weeks if the government simply arrested and prosecuted employers for hiring them. But at the expense of grinding our economy to a screeching halt.
Don’t think so?
Consider this recent story from the New York Times…
Glenn Valley Foods in Omaha was a bustling meatpacking company that had been setting sales records for more than a decade until this year, when federal agents raided a factory in search of undocumented immigrant workers.
That cost the company most of its workforce — many employees were being deported or held at a detention center — despite the business using the federal E-Verify system to try to check if they were eligible for work.
It has left Gary Rohwer, Glenn Valley’s owner, in a bind: how to replace employees in an era of harsh scrutiny over the hiring of immigrants, The Times’s Eli Saslow writes.
[Rohwer] looked out into the lobby and saw three women filling out applications. Glenn Valley paid well, with an average hourly wage of almost $20 and regular bonuses, but the work was repetitive and demanding. Employees who came mostly from Mexico and Central America stood on a manufacturing line for as much as 10 hours a day, six days a week, and processed hundreds of pounds of meat through dangerous machinery in a cold factory.
Ever since videos of the raid spread across social media, Rohwer had answered dozens of calls from strangers who accused him of “stealing American jobs.” But Nebraska was experiencing a work shortage, with only 66 qualified workers for every 100 positions. Almost every one of the company’s new applicants was also a Hispanic immigrant.
“There are some jobs Americans don’t want to do,” Rohwer tried explaining to one caller. “We’re caught up in a broken system.”
I wonder how many people like Mr Sullivan and his MAGA friends would be interested in standing on a manufacturing line,10 hours a day, six days a week, processing meat through dangerous machinery in a cold factory all the while, I might add, paying into Social Security without being able to benefit from the program as well as paying local, state, and federal taxes? Oh… and also not being allowed to vote despite Mr Sullivan’s lie.
Between his indiscriminate DOGE downsizing, tariffs, and mass deportations, trump is setting economic time bombs and landmines that are going to go off in the near future that are going to cripple this country. So enjoy your righteous rage Mr Sullivan while you can.
Deirdre LaMotte says
The pitiful people of this nation need “Trump” to feel worthwhile. Yes, pitiful when one needs the degradation of those less fortunate to feel value.
Gee, who know there were so many??!!