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(GATEWAY, Ark.) — A U.S. Border Patrol tactical unit from Texas, known as BORTAC, has been deployed to Arkansas to assist in the manhunt for Grant Hardin, officials said.

This unit is “equipped with specialized tools and possess extensive experience in high-risk operations and complex terrain navigation,” according to a statement from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Hardin, 56, escaped from the North Central Unit state prison in Calico Rock, Arkansas, on May 25 through a sally port by impersonating a corrections officer “in dress and manner,” which caused another corrections officer “operating a secure gate to open the gate and allow Hardin to walk away from the North Central Unit,” according to an affidavit obtained by ABC News.

Officials said during a press conference that Hardin was not wearing an official uniform from the department of corrections and it had to “have been homemade or brought in somehow.”

Hardin currently remains at large, and the FBI is offering a reward of up to $20,000 for information leading to his capture.
The RGV Sector BORTAC team is composed of highly trained tactical agents and they are providing “advanced search capabilities and operational support to the multi-agency effort underway in northern Arkansas,” officials said.

“BORTAC’s unique capabilities and training are well-suited for the demands of this critical mission. USBP is committed to supporting our state and local partners in the effort to apprehend this dangerous fugitive,” said Chief Patrol Agent Gloria I. Chavez.

Authorities have already been using helicopters, drones, K9 officers and ATVs in their search for Hardin but have, so far, not been able to find him.
Rugged terrain, densely wooded areas, hills and days of rain have been “hindering the ongoing search,” a spokesperson with the department of corrections said.

Deputies are continuing to monitor the roadways near the prison and are conducting security checkpoints in the area, according to officials, and the department of corrections said they are in contact with neighboring states, since Hardin grew up on the Missouri border.

Hardin pleaded guilty in October 2017 to first-degree murder in connection with the shooting death of 59-year-old James Appleton, according to The Associated Press.

He was also convicted of the 1997 rape of an elementary school teacher in Rogers, Arkansas, a crime highlighted in the 2023 television documentary “Devil in the Ozarks.”

Hardin is described as 6 feet tall and weighing 259 pounds and authorities said anyone with information regarding his whereabouts should contact local law enforcement immediately.

ABC News’ Ahmad Hemingway and Megan Forrester contributed to this report.

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(NORFOLK, Va.) — A 21-year-old Navy sailor has mysteriously disappeared in Virginia, leaving her mother desperate for answers.

Angelina “Angie” Resendiz was last seen on Thursday, May 29, at 10 a.m. at her barracks in Miller Hall at Naval Station Norfolk, according to the Virginia State Police.

“This disappearance poses a credible threat to their health and safety as determined by the investigating agency,” police said.

Resendiz, a Texas native, is a culinary specialist assigned to the USS James E. Williams, the Navy said.

Resendiz’s mother, Esmeralda Castle, insists that her daughter “does not miss work. Sick, snow, feeling down, she shows up.”

Resendiz joined the Navy in 2023 after high school “because she felt it was something that called her,” Castle wrote to ABC News.

As a culinary specialist, “She thought that one day she might be able to cook for the president and other world leaders,” Castle said. “She worked really hard on her ship.”

“She’s fun, loving, kind, compassionate, uplifting,” she added.

“People that care about Angie shared with me that the last person she was with was missing with her,” and “that person showed up Monday but not Angie,” Castle said.

“There are no answers for me,” she said. “I just want my kid, she doesn’t deserve to be missing.”

The Navy told ABC News in a statement that it’s “cooperating fully with the investigation.”

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service said, “Out of respect for the investigative process, NCIS will not comment further while the investigation remains ongoing.”

Anyone with information is urged to call NCIS at 877-579-3648.

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(NEW YORK) — Outside a nondescript building in downtown Manhattan, Ambar was pleading to God and immigration authorities that her husband Jaen would not walk out the doors of the Elk Street facility in handcuffs.

“It’s the only thing I ask of God and them, to have mercy for his family. I don’t have anyone else. I’m alone with my daughter, I don’t want to be separated from him,” Ambar told ABC News with tears welling up as her daughter Aranza kept herself distracted on an iPad.

But her prayers were not answered. That afternoon, Jaen and two other men were brought outside by masked agents in plainclothes and quickly ushered into unmarked vehicles, with Ambar wailing and making a last plea. Aranza, 12, tried to push past the agents to prevent them from leading him toward the vehicles, tears streaming down her face.

ABC News observed the emotional moments as an uncontrollably distraught Ambar threw herself on the ground pleading for her husband to be released.

The masked individuals did not respond to multiple questions asked by ABC News regarding what agency they belonged to, why they were covering their faces, and which authority was being invoked to detain the men. But Jaen’s lawyer, Margaret Cargioli, says his detention follows a growing pattern of migrants being detained during check-ins with the Department of Homeland Security and being quickly deported under expedited removal.

DHS did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

In 2023, ABC News did a sit-down interview with the Colombian-Venezuelan family about their tearful reunion after being separated at the border by U.S. authorities in Texas. Jaen, Ambar and Aranza made the dangerous journey from Colombia hoping to seek asylum in the U.S.

“[It was] traumatic,” Jaen said during the interview. “It was a risky decision. We knew we had someone to take care of, our daughter. As a family, we felt we didn’t have another option.”

Once they reached the border the family said they were separated and were placed in different types of removal proceedings. Ambar and her daughter said they were eventually released and placed on a bus to Los Angeles, funded by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star.

Jaen was issued a removal order under the expedited removal process, but Cargioli and other attorneys with Immigrant Defenders Law Center were able to successfully challenge the separation and he was released on humanitarian parole for one year.

Cargioli says Jaen has petitioned for asylum, a renewal of parole and a stay of removal but all are pending.

Jaen was scheduled for a check-in on June 16 as part of the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP) — an alternative to the detention program run by ICE — but was unexpectedly told to come in on June 3 or 4, Ambar told ABC News.

That raised major red flags for his legal team, who has been monitoring increasing incidents of the Trump administration detaining migrants in the interior of the country and placing them on “expedited removal.” The process allows the government to remove migrants in a streamlined manner without requiring them, in some cases, to go before a judge.

Under the Biden administration, the process applied to migrants who had entered the U.S. within 14 days and within 100 miles of the border. Under the Trump administration, it has been expanded to apply to migrants anywhere in the interior who have arrived within two years.

Jaen and his family entered the United States on June 4, 2023, exactly two years before his latest detention, leading Cargioli to fear he’s being placed in expedited removal. Despite asking the ISAP officers where he was going to be detained, and if it was through expedited removal, the attorney says she has not received an answer.

Jaen spoke with Ambar on the phone after his detention and said he did not know where he was, but that he was being held at a facility close to where he was detained, Ambar said.

Ambar and Aranza have an asylum hearing scheduled for June 2028. Cargioli believes Jaen would be with his family if they had not been separated at the border.

“If he had not been separated from his family at that stage and put into expedited removal, he would have his case in immigration in New York, in immigration court with her, with both of them,” she told ABC News.

ISAP check-ins are carried out through a government contractor called BI Incorporated, according to DHS reports. Jaen has been regularly checking in at the Elk Street office since his initial detention, Ambar said.

Families with loved ones checking in stand outside the facility hoping they will not be detained. On Wednesday, ABC News saw one woman cry with joy when a relative and her baby walked out with no handcuffs in sight. Another woman was shocked to see her mom being quickly led into one of the vehicles waiting outside the building.

“Mom what happened, what is this,” the woman asked. The masked agents did not respond to her repeated questions about why her mom was being detained.

“I don’t understand,” the woman yelled. “She didn’t do anything. She has a work card.”

“Who do we speak to…what is going on,” she asked as the agents closed the car door and drove off with her mother.

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(PHOENIX) — A 9-year-old boy allegedly accidentally shot and killed his 5-year-old sister with their father’s AR-style rifle, according to police and court documents.

Their father, 33-year-old Irvin Ramos-Jimenez, told police he was out front of his Phoenix home Tuesday night when he heard a loud bang inside, according to the probable cause statement. He said he ran into his son’s room where he found his daughter with a gunshot wound to her torso, the documents said.

Ramos-Jimenez told police he and his girlfriend rushed the little girl to a psychiatric center to meet an ambulance. He said he dropped off his daughter and girlfriend and then drove back home where his children had been left unattended with the gun, the documents said.

Ramos-Jimenez said he stored his weapon “in the top shelf of his son’s bedroom,” adding that “his son must have grabbed the gun,” according to the probable cause statement.

Ramos-Jimenez has been arrested for possession of a weapon by a prohibited person, Phoenix police said.

Ramos-Jimenez was convicted in 2021 of transporting and/or trafficking narcotics, according to court documents. He’s barred from having a firearm and he told police he bought the AR-style rifle “through a private sale for personal protection,” the probable cause document said.

“We ask all gun owners to ensure that all guns are stored in a location, preferably a secured safe, out of reach of all children in the home or who may visit,” Phoenix Police Sgt. Robert Scherer told ABC News via email. “No family should ever have to endure the loss of a child in circumstances like these.”

Guns are the leading cause of death for children in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Each year, hundreds of kids in the U.S. access loaded firearms and accidentally shoot themselves or someone else, according to Everytown for Gun Safety. The worst year on record was 2023, when there were more than 400 unintentional shootings by kids, Everytown said.

So far this year, kids have carried out at least 66 unintentional shootings, resulting in at least 30 deaths, according to Everytown.

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(WASHINGTON) — A wrongly deported Guatemalan man has been returned to the United States, marking the first time the Trump administration has brought back a deportee based on a judge’s order.

The man, who was wrongly deported to Mexico, was returned to the U.S. on Wednesday, according to his lawyer.

The return of the man, identified in court filings as O.C.G., is the first instance in which the Trump administration, in the midst of a sweeping immigration crackdown, has brought a deportee back to the U.S. after a judge ordered their return.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy ordered the Trump administration to “take all immediate steps” to return O.C.G. after he was “placed on a bus and sent to Mexico,” a country where he said he was previously held for ransom and raped, according to court filings.

O.C.G., according to court documents, illegally entered the U.S. in March 2024 and was deported. After he subsequently reentered the United States. O.C.G. attested during immigration proceedings that he was afraid of being sent to Mexico, leading a judge to grant him a withholding of removal to that country.

Judge Murphy found that O.C.G. was likely to succeed in showing that “his removal lacked any semblance of due process.”

“No one has ever suggested that O.C.G. poses any sort of security threat.” Murphy said in his order in May. “In general, this case presents no special facts or legal circumstances, only the banal horror of a man being wrongfully loaded onto a bus and sent back to a country where he was allegedly just raped and kidnapped.”

After O.C.G. was sent to Mexico, authorities removed him to Guatemala, where he said he had to remain in hiding until his return, according to court filings.

O.C.G. is one of the original plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit filed in Massachusetts that challenges removals to third countries.

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(PHOENIX) — A 9-year-old boy allegedly shot and killed his 5-year-old sister by accident in their Phoenix home, police said.

The 5-year-old girl was pronounced dead at a local trauma center after the incident on Tuesday night, Phoenix police said.

The rifle used in the shooting belonged to the children’s father, 33-year-old Irvin Ramos-Jimenez, police said. Ramos-Jimenez has been arrested for possession of a weapon by a prohibited person, police said.

It was not immediately clear where the rifle used in the Phoenix shooting was stored.

“We ask all gun owners to ensure that all guns are stored in a location, preferably a secured safe, out of reach of all children in the home or who may visit,” Phoenix Police Sgt. Robert Scherer told ABC News via email. “No family should ever have to endure the loss of a child in circumstances like these.”

Guns are the leading cause of death for children in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Each year, hundreds of kids in the U.S. access loaded firearms and accidentally shoot themselves or someone else, according to Everytown for Gun Safety. The worst year on record was 2023, when there were more than 400 unintentional shootings by kids, Everytown said.

So far this year, kids have carried out at least 66 unintentional shootings, resulting in at least 30 deaths, according to Everytown.

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(SEATTLE) — The body of a 41-year-old ski mountaineer has been recovered after he fell over 3,000 feet off of Mount McKinley, the tallest mountain in North America, officials said.

Alex Chiu of Seattle, Washington, was on the Mount McKinley West Buttress climbing route on the Peters Glacier when he fell on Monday, according to a statement from the National Park Service.

“On Monday, June 2, the other two members of Chiu’s expedition reported that the un-roped ski mountaineer fell at a location known as Squirrel Point towards the Peters Glacier, an exposed rocky and serac covered 3000-foot face,” officials said. “After witnessing the fall, the reporting party lowered over the edge as far as possible but was unable to see or hear Chiu. They then descended the West Buttress route for additional help before proceeding to Camp 1.”

Due to high winds and snow, ground and air search was unable to access the accident site until the early morning hours of Wednesday morning, according to the National Park Service.

“Clearing weather on the north side of the Alaska Range provided the opportunity for two mountaineering rangers to depart Talkeetna for an ariel helicopter search to locate and recover the body,” officials said.

After the 41-year-old’s body was recovered from the more than half a mile fall, rangers returned to Denali National Park and Preserve headquarters where his body was transferred to the state medical examiner, park officials said.

In 2010, an un-roped French mountaineer fell to his death near this same location towards the Peters Glacier. His body was never recovered.

There are currently an estimated 500 climbers on the mountain and the climbing season typically begins in early May and ends in early July.

The investigation into the fall is currently open and ongoing.

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(GASTONIA, N.C.) — The parents of a 7-year-old boy who was fatally struck by a car while trying to cross a street in North Carolina have been charged with manslaughter and remain in jail on $1.5 million bond, police said.

The child was hit by a Jeep Cherokee on May 27 in Gastonia, located west of Charlotte, police said.

He was attempting to cross the street outside of a crosswalk with a 10-year-old boy when the crash occurred, according to the Gastonia Police Department. He suffered life-threatening injuries and died at a hospital.

His parents — Jessica Ivey, 30, and Samuele Jenkins, 31 — were charged two days after the deadly collision with felony involuntary manslaughter, felony child neglect and misdemeanor child neglect, police said.

The parents said the older child was the boy’s brother, ABC Charlotte affiliate WSOC reported.

The Gastonia Police Department said in a press release that its investigation “revealed that the children involved were unsupervised at the time the boy stepped into traffic.”

“In such cases, adults must be held accountable for their responsibilities to ensure a safe environment for their children,” the department added.

A judge set the parents’ bond at $1.5 million during a court appearance on Friday. They remain in custody in the Gaston County Jail, online jail records show. They have not yet entered a plea to the charges.

ABC News has reached out to Ivey’s public defender for comment and did not immediately receive a response. Jenkins’ attorney said he was appointed to the case on Wednesday and had not received any documents yet.

The 76-year-old female driver of the Jeep has not been charged, police said.

“At this time, there is no evidence of speeding or wrongdoing on the part of the driver, therefore no charges have been filed,” the Gastonia Police Department said. “The driver continues to be cooperative and the incident remains under active investigation by the Gastonia Police Department’s Traffic Division.”

Police did not release the name of the boy who was fatally struck, though his parents said his first name was Legend in an interview with WSOC prior to their arrest.

Ivey told the station that her two sons were walking the two blocks home from a shopping center for the first time on their own when the accident occurred, WSOC reported.

“It was just devastating. I’m still in shock,” she told WSOC.

“It’s hard. I haven’t stopped crying. My husband hasn’t stopped crying,” she told the station.

Ivey added that she wanted “justice for my baby” against the driver, whose name has not been publicly released.

“I just don’t feel like she should still be able to drive,” Ivey told WSOC.

Jenkins told WSOC he was on the phone with his sons when the crash occurred.

“I heard my oldest son, he was like, ‘Oh my God, Legend, no, no,'” he told the station. “So I hung up and … I ran to find them.”

The parents are next scheduled to appear in court on June 20.

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(BAXTER STATE PARK, Maine) — A man and his daughter were found dead following an extensive, dayslong search after they went missing while attempting to hike to the summit of Mount Katahdin in Maine, officials said.

Tim Keiderling and Esther Keiderling, both of Ulster Park, New York, set out to hike the summit on Sunday, according to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife.

They were last seen Sunday morning on the Katahdin Tablelands heading toward the summit, which is the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail and located in Baxter State Park.

Baxter State Park rangers began searching for them Monday morning after their vehicle was still found parked at the trailhead in the day-use parking lot, park officials said.

The search on Katahdin expanded Tuesday to include the help of dozens of Maine game wardens, including the Maine Warden Service Search and Rescue team, and the Maine Warden Service K9 team. The Maine Forest Service and the Maine Army National Guard also responded as part of an aerial search.

The body of Tim Keiderling, 58, was found Tuesday afternoon, officials said. A Maine Warden Service K9 search team located him at approximately 2:24 p.m. on the Tablelands near the summit of Katahdin, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife said.

The body of his 28-year-old daughter was found at approximately 1 p.m. Wednesday in a wooded area of Katahdin’s Tableland between two known trails, officials said.

Additional details will be released later Wednesday after search crews return to the base area, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife said.

“We understand that many of our social media followers share in our profound sadness for the family and friends of Tim and Esther Keiderling,” Baxter State Park said in a statement on Facebook. “We appreciate your support for their loved ones and the members of the search teams during this incredibly difficult time.”

Baxter State Park notes on its website that hiking Katahdin “is a very strenuous climb, no matter which trailhead you choose.” The average round-trip time for a Katahdin hike is eight to 12 hours, it said.

All Katahdin trailhead trails are currently closed until further notice, the park said.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Education sent a warning to the accreditor of Columbia University on Wednesday, saying the Ivy League institution violated federal anti-discrimination laws.

U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a press release that the decision came after the spate of protests on university grounds opposing the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

McMahon alleged Columbia leadership “acted with deliberate indifference towards the harassment of Jewish students on its campus.”

“This is not only immoral, but also unlawful,” McMahon said.

Columbia is accused of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits recipients of federal funding from discriminating on the basis of race, color or national origin, according to the department.

The department said that by violating federal anti-discrimination laws, Columbia has failed to meet the standards of accreditation that have been set by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.

The government claims Columbia leadershup failed to take several actions, including failing to establish effective reporting mechanisms for antisemitism until the summer of 2024, failure to abide by its own policies and procedures when responding to Jewish students’ complaints as well as governing misconduct against Jewish students and not investigating or punishing vandalism in its classrooms.

Now, the university’s federal accreditor is required to establish a plan to come into compliance with the federal law or “take appropriate action against” Columbia, the department said.

ABC News has reached out to Columbia University for a comment.

This is President Donald Trump’s administration’s latest action taken against prominent universities, claiming they have fostered a breeding ground for harassment of Jewish students amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

Last month, the Trump administration announced and then backtracked on a decision to bar Harvard University from allowing international students to enroll at the university.

Harvard is also fighting the Trump administration’s attempt to freeze more than $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts to the school. Harvard filed a separate lawsuit to challenge the funding freeze in April, and the next hearing in that case is set for July.

Trump has also expressed interest in revoking the university’s tax-exempt status.

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