Pastor facing possible deportation prepares for court, will seek pardon

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (ABP) -- A Hispanic Baptist pastor arrested last summer by immigration authorities won't find out until September whether he will be deported for a crime committed in 1995.
Hector Villanueva, pastor of Bautista la Rocha in Siler City, N.C., accepted Christ while serving 16 months in prison and decided to turn his life around and become a pastor. Now married with children, he started his current congregation with help from the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina in August 2010.

Hector Villanueva has lived in the. U.S. 38 of his 41 years. His wife of 12 years, Martha, moved here when she was 2. They have four children and are hoping to adopt two more.

After just three services in the new church, Villanueva was arrested Aug. 19 by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. He was jailed in Raleigh and then Alamance County in North Carolina and then moved to Gainesville, Ga., while his family desperately tried to keep track of his movements over a two-week period.
Released from custody on $15,000 bail that was covered by the North Carolina CBF, Villanueva and his family now await a September hearing to find out if a court will decide to deport him to Mexico. Villanueva is also preparing a request for a pardon from North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue.
Villanueva has permanent-resident status in the U.S. That gives him every right of a citizen except to vote. His arrest came after he applied for citizenship and a background check surfaced a 1995 felony. That placed him under a law that mandates deportation for immigrants convicted of a felony, even though it wasn't passed until three years after Villanueva had committed the crime and had already served his punishment.
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