Family, activists call for release of MSU employee Paul Essel - Springfield Daily Citizen

Family members, university colleagues, and Springfield-area activists gathered at Carrington Hall on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026, to demand the immediate release of Paul Essel, a Missouri State University employee currently held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Greene County Jail, the Springfield Daily Citizen reported.

Arrest Highlights Longstanding Immigration Complexities

Essel, a 51-year-old native of Ghana who has lived in the United States for 23 years, was taken into custody by federal agents earlier in October. The arrest occurred after he pulled into a Walmart parking lot to buy supplies for one of his children’s class projects, interrupting a morning school drop-off.

Online court records show no criminal charges against Essel in Missouri, aside from two minor driving offenses. However, his detention stems from a deportation order issued by a judge over a decade ago. The Department of Homeland Security concluded in 2013 that Essel’s first marriage in 2012 was fraudulent—an allegation he and his legal representatives have strenuously denied.

Essel explained to the Daily Citizen in an Oct. 27 phone interview from the Greene County Jail that he provided his former attorney with over 100 pages of evidence, including travel logs and legal documents. He stated that his attorney submitted only a single document to the immigration judge, leading to a 2015 removal order that he subsequently fought through multiple appeals and motions with the Board of Immigration Appeals.

During the years following those proceedings, Essel remarried and received approval for an I-130 petition, a foundational step for relatives of U.S. citizens seeking permanent residence. He noted that he has worked with three attorneys and spent more than $100,000 on legal fees and travel expenses over the last seventeen years in pursuit of legal status.

“I love everything about Springfield. I think I belong. I have done everything: went through school, worked, helped so many people graduate from MSU. If this is not a good example of being a good citizen, then I don’t know what a good citizen is,” Essel said from detention.

Community Pushback and Institutional Impact

The NAACP Springfield Branch issued a press release emphasizing the human cost of the detention. “Our call to bring Paul home is a call to recognize the humanity behind detention and the families it impacts,” the organization stated, while also urging the Greene County Sheriff’s Office to terminate its ICE contracts and release all detainees.

Essel serves as a manager for MSU’s Grants and Contracts staff and is heavily involved in supporting international students alongside his wife, Pearl Essel. Lawrence Kofie, a friend from Ghana who met Essel through international student meetings, noted the family’s extensive history of helping students cover food, housing, and tuition costs.

University leadership has responded by placing Essel on paid administrative leave while offering counseling resources to distressed employees. President Richard B. Williams and university spokespersons have acknowledged Essel’s long-standing contributions to the campus community. Meanwhile, federal immigration enforcement has increasingly touched the university, which saw the visas of six international students revoked last year and previously conducted preparedness briefings for staff regarding campus enforcement actions.

ICE officials did not respond to multiple requests from reporters seeking an explanation for the timing and reasoning behind Essel’s recent arrest.

“He loves this country, and anybody that comes in, he’s trying for them to do the right thing,” Pearl Essel told reporters on Oct. 28, reflecting on her husband’s perspective while caring for their three children, aged 14, 10, and 5. “It’s just that a country that he loves so much would even treat him like he’s a criminal.”