Exclusive | Families of Americans imprisoned in China have glimmer of hope that Trump can free loved ones during Xi meeting

WASHINGTON — Grace Drexel felt a “glimmer of hope” when President Trump said he would bring up her father’s detention in China when he meets with President Xi Jinping in Beijing next week.“This president has just a remarkable way of doing things that most people say are impossible,” she told The Post.“If anyone, this president might be able to bring back my father.”Ezra Jin, a Christian pastor and father of US citizens, was arrested in October as part of a massive Chinese crackdown on religious institutions.Drexel is expecting her third child in four weeks and hopes her father will be free in time to meet his newest grandchild.“A week before my father was detained, we just told my dad that we got pregnant, and it was so early that we weren’t sharing it widely or anything like that.

And we’re really grateful that we are actually able to tell my dad about the baby before he was in prison,” she said.“It’s like this baby has kind of walked through it all with us since the beginning.”Trump has made the return of detained Americans a priority for his administration.As of May 2026, the president has secured the release of over 100 American hostages and detainees held abroad.“I’ve gotten a lot of people out of different countries, including China,” Trump told reporters on Thursday.

“So we’ll take a look at that,” he added of Jin’s case.Drexel, who lives in Washington, DC, said she was coming home from dinner when she heard what the president said and was so excited she missed several stops on the metro and had to retrace her steps.The Jins are not the only family hoping the president will make the case for their loved one’s freedom.Dawn Michelle Hunt has been in Guangdong Women’s Prison since her 2014 arrest.Her family says she’s the victim of a drug trafficking scheme.Tim Hunt, Dawn’s brother, told The Post how he promised their father, before his death in January, that he would see his sister brought home.Trump “is ...