A 64-year-old churchman with 44 years in America, court-ordered protection against removal, and a congregation that depends on him now sits in a maximum-security cell in southern Africa. His case indicts Washington’s cruelty — and exposes the hollowness of Kingston’s assurances

 DIASPORA |   July 11, 2026 - When United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Junior Alves in a Florida churchyard on January 11 — metres from his home, on his way to a shop — the 64-year-old pastor could scarcely have imagined where the road would end: a maximum-security prison in Eswatini, a landlocked African kingdom he had never seen, half a world from the family he raised and the community he fed.