NORCROSS, Ga. -- A Gwinnett County pastor is defending the 10 missionaries who were detained on human trafficking charges in Haiti.

Pastor Jean Sainvil claimed Tuesday that he was the one who gave the missionaries permission to move 33 Haitian children to the Dominican Republic.

On Friday night, authorities stopped a bus carrying the orphans and missionaries as they tried to cross the border.

“The Americans were not trying to kidnap the children, but they were trying to save those children,” Sainvil said.

Sainvil said the goal of his organization, New Life Children’s Refuge, was to move the orphans to a nicer orphanage in the Dominican Republic, which had a soccer field, classrooms and a swimming pool.

Sainvil said after last month’s earthquake, some parents signed over their children in hopes that they would have a better life outside the country.

“I got their phone numbers, their names, their children’s names, their children’s date of birth,” he said.

Some of those parents confirmed to CBS reporter Bill Whitaker that they gave their permission for the children to go to the orphanage in the Dominican Republic. When the missionaries were stopped at the border, they did not have passports for the children.

“Do you think these Americans acted foolishly in some ways, not taking precautions, making sure they had all their paperwork?” asked Schramm.

“I don’t think they acted foolishly. They acted with compassion,” said Sainvil.

He said when border authorities were questioning the missionaries, “One of the police officers called me and I was talking to him, and that’s when my phone went dead.”

Sainvil said he believes if he had been on the bus with the missionaries, the misunderstanding would have been cleared up immediately.

“There was no reason for them to be detained as kidnappers or people who are trafficking children. They were people from a church, not from the streets,” he said.