In a dramatic shift, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Monday detained four men — Indonesian Christians who have lived in New Jersey for more than 20 years — who were previously protected from deportation by the Obama administration.

The men are all employed taxpayers, and one has an American-born child, according to their pastor, Seth Kaper-Dale of the Reformed Church of Highland Park. They are part of a community of about 80 Indonesian Christians in New Jersey who could now all be under threat of deportation to Indonesia, a Muslim country that they fled due to religious persecution. 

Two months ago, the men showed up to an annual meeting with ICE in Newark, known as a "check-in." These meetings, as WNYC reported earlier this year, used to be routine and bureaucratic — but in the era of President Trump, they are fraught with risk. 

At that meeting, the men were told to return with their passports. They showed up Monday with a lawyer in tow, Kaper-Dale said. After an ICE agent initially indicated they'd be released and allowed to check back in at a later date, as had happened year after year, they were arrested and taken to a for-profit immigration detention facility in Elizabeth, NJ.

"Four wonderful people from our community — two of whom we prayed for yesterday when we sent them out from church — are now in detention," Kaper-Dale said.

A spokesman for ICE, Lou Martinez, confirmed that the men are in ICE custody pending a hearing with a federal judge. But he would not provide details about why they were arrested. The arrests are consistent with stepped-up immigration enforcement since Trump gave ICE broader discretion in deportations, as evidenced by recent arrests in New Jersey courthouses.

The story of the Indonesian Christians reflects the changes in attitudes and policies toward immigration over the past two decades. The men overstayed tourist visas in the 1990s after fleeing what they described as religious persecution in Muslim-majority Indonesia. Even though they're Christian, after Sept. 11, 2001, the men — like all male temporary visa holders from Muslim nations — were required under a Bush Administration policy to register with the federal government. That's what got them on ICE's radar. 

They then applied for asylum, but their applications were rejected because they missed a deadline that expires one year after arrival. So they continued living in New Jersey without permanent status, working blue-collar jobs at warehouses and factories, until an ICE raid on a group of Indonesian Christians in 2006 put the community in the cross-hairs. Many were deported; others were held in detention. But in 2009, Kaper-Dale helped to strike a deal with the Obama administration that allowed dozens to stay in the country under a type of probation known as an "order of supervision." 

That only lasted until 2012, when deportations resumed. So Kaper-Dale turned his church into a safe refuge, housing Indonesian Christians for 11 months. Their plight got national media attention.

Part of Kaper-Dale's argument was the contributions that the men had made to the community. One Indonesian slated for deportation, Harry Pangemanan, had helped to rebuild 200 homes after Sandy hit, for example.

In 2013, federal officials said the Christians could stay — as long as they kept a clean criminal record and annually met with ICE. They were released under orders of supervision that an ICE spokesman described at the time as allowing them to "remain in the community."

It looks as if that policy has changed.

All four of the men detained Monday — Arino Massie, who is the father of a U.S. citizen; Saul Timisela, who is supporting his disabled Indonesian wife; Rovani Wangko, who is married to a green card holder; and Oldy Manopo, father of a child allowed to stay under the "Dreamer" program — had found sanctuary at the church in 2012. At the time, Timisela told The New York Times that anti-Christian rioters in Indonesia had decapitated a relative who was a pastor and burned down his church.

"We're looking for a better life, freedom of worship," Timesela said then.

If the men are sent back to Indonesia, they will face this reality: In the last 20 years, the persecution of Christians has only increased.