A Houston-area pastor is waking up in ICE custody after agents detained him at George Bush Intercontinental Airport while he and his wife were preparing to travel to New York.
Luis Morales came to the United States from Venezuela with his wife, Karina, and their two daughters in 2020. The family has called Houston home since 2023.
Morales is a husband, father and pastor who leads four Adventist churches in the Houston area. His wife says he has spent 19 years in ministry.
Now, Morales is being held at an ICE detention center in Livingston.
“He’s loving at home. He’s very aware of everything, aware of me, of my daughters,” Karina Morales said. “The emptiness we feel at home is terrible. It’s indescribable.”
The family came to the United States on tourist visas and later applied for asylum.
On Aug. 6, Morales and his wife were at Bush Airport preparing to travel to New York, where their daughters were waiting.
They never made it through security.
Karina said two ICE agents called out, “Mr. Luis,” and already had paperwork containing her husband’s information.
Video shows Morales being escorted out of the airport by ICE agents.
ICE says Morales’ immigration history made him subject to arrest.
According to the agency, Morales legally entered the United States in January 2020 but was required to leave the country by July of that year.
ICE says Morales later received Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, but that protection was revoked in November 2025.
His wife, however, says the family’s asylum case remains pending and they were waiting for that process to play out.
“My husband was always monitoring all these appointments and all that,” Karina said. “But at no time did we receive any deportation orders or anything like that.”
The family says they were not expecting Morales to be detained while traveling.
Morales remains in ICE custody as his family waits for answers about what happens next.