Faith leaders are demanding that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement immediately release two pastors who advocates say were wrongfully detained by ICE agents in Texas on Thursday while they were traveling to a religious retreat.

Pastor Nepthalí Zozaya Saucedo and his wife, pastor Cinthia Saraí Cardona Otero, were taken into custody by federal immigration officers after arriving at McAllen International Airport.

The couple and their church leaders said the longtime pastors at Comunidad Cristiana Emanuel Assemblies of God in Edinburg, Texas, were en route to a marriage retreat in North Carolina organized by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association when they were detained. They were later taken to a U.S. Border Patrol processing center in McAllen.

At a Friday press conference organized by leaders from the Assemblies of God and the Latino Christian National Network, LCN board member Sandy Ovalle said the couple holds valid R-1 religious worker visas. R-1 visas are temporary nonimmigrant visas for religious workers employed by qualifying religious organizations, making the pastors’ immigration status central to the dispute between church leaders and federal officials.

“We are calling for their immediate release, the protection of their due process rights, and an urgent oversight into ICE’s conduct,” Ovalle said. “No one should be pressured to give up their rights under the threat of losing their children.”

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told Religion News Service that the pastors are “illegal aliens” who overstayed their visas.

Speaking to the conference by phone from the detention center, Nepthalí said the couple was threatened with separation from their U.S. citizen children if they refused to sign documents authorizing their “voluntary” deportation.

“They spoke with us about separation—to be separated from our children and even as married people,” he said, according to Religion News Service. “They spoke about how much time that we could end up spending here.”

Comunidad Cristiana Emanuel senior pastor Sarai Martinez Luna said during the press conference, “I think it’s very cruel that somebody that had no status for deportation be pressured to sign a voluntary deportation based on the separation of their children.”

Friday’s news conference came after faith leaders held a Wednesday press briefing at the Texas Capitol in Austin to condemn the killings of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine, Juan Jairo Coronilla Durán in Florida, and Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston.

“This is not of God. This is no peace that we want a part of because let’s be honest, this isn’t a peacekeeping initiative. This is a terror campaign with the mission of traumatizing our neighbors until they self-deport,” said Dan De Leon, senior pastor at Friends Congregational Church in College Station. “We don’t need terror. We need peace.”

Elyse Rosenberg of the National Council of Jewish Women and Temple Beth Shalom in Austin said during the press conference that “throughout our history, we have repeatedly seen first-hand the consequences of governments exercising unchecked power on vulnerable populations.”

The Friday event also took place ahead of nationwide vigils planned in more than 300 communities on Saturday to demand justice for the dozens of people who have been killed by federal enforcers or died in ICE custody during President Donald Trump’s second term. The detention of the Texas pastors has added another case to faith groups’ broader objections to immigration enforcement tactics, particularly where clergy say families, congregations, and due process protections are at stake.

“We refuse to grieve quietly. We refuse to accept this terror and violence as inevitable,” Crystal Cron, executive director of Presente! Maine, said ahead of the vigils. “Johan Sebastián should still be here with his wife and daughter—and instead, his name joins a growing list of people killed by an institution that treats our communities as disposable.”

“This is bigger than one shooting,” Cron added. “We will not stop fighting until there is justice for the Durán Guerrero family and a total dismantling of this lawless, criminal agency that took him from them.”