Cessna Golden Eagle (Francois Joseph Berger / 500px/Getty)
(WIMBERLEY, Texas) — Five people were killed in a plane crash in Texas on Thursday night, investigators said.
Hayes County Judge Ruben Becerra said first responders received a call around 11:00 p.m. local time of a plane down in the area of Wimberley, which is roughly 30 miles southwest of Austin.
Fire and EMS crews found the downed Cessna 421C, along with the bodies of the five deceased passengers. Their identities were not immediately released.
Although a cause of the crash was not immediately determined, investigators said preliminary information shows that there was no midair collision.
“Preliminary information indicates the aircraft was traveling at a high rate of speed at the time of impact,” Becerra said in a statement.
The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board will take over the investigation, according to the judge.
TikTok logo is displayed on a mobile phone screen for illustration photo. Krakow, Poland. On April, 20th, 2026. (Photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — An alleged TikTok antagonist is accused of stabbing a 17-year-old to death outside his New York City apartment building, authorities said.
Andrew Tollinche, 22, has been charged with murder, manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon in connection with the killing outside his Bronx home on Wednesday, according to New York City police.
Detectives had been looking for Tollinche after determining the stabbing stemmed from his posts on TikTok. Tollinche allegedly antagonizes people on the social media platform, and neighborhood teens have recently been gathering outside his home, knocking on his door and calling him out, according to police.
The victim, Jonathan Melo, who has no criminal record, was part of a group that went to the suspect’s apartment building, according to police. The interaction turned sour, and Tollinche went inside to grab a knife, came outside and allegedly stabbed the 17-year-old in the back, police said.
Melo was rushed to a hospital where he was pronounced dead, officials said.
Tollinche has a prior unsealed arrest for allegedly raping a minor in 2025, according to records. He has other prior interactions with police, some of them stemming from social media posts.
Tollinche is due in court on Friday. It was not immediately clear whether he had a lawyer.
Kentucky State Police released this image of the suspect in a bank robbery in Berea, Kentucky, on April 30, 2026. (Kentucky State Police)
(BEREA, Ky.) — A person of interest is in custody Friday morning after a masked man shot and killed two employees during a bank robbery in central Kentucky Thursday afternoon, according to Kentucky State Police.
Police said Friday that the person of interest is “believed to be involved,” but did not immediately release more information.
The suspect entered the U.S. Bank in Berea around 2 p.m. before shooting two employees and fleeing, state police Trooper Scottie Pennington told reporters Thursday.
“We understand the citizens of Berea and in Madison County, they’re scared right now, and we’re scared for them,” Pennington said. “We want to do our best to find this person and bring him to justice.”
The suspect was described as about 6 foot, 3 inches tall, wearing a light-colored hooded sweatshirt, dark gloves, gray pants and light-colored athletic shoes, according to state police.
Pennington said authorities are not sharing if the suspect took anything with him from the bank and weren’t sure if the suspect fled on foot or in a vehicle. Residents should remain vigilant, keep their doors locked and call police if they see anything suspicious, Pennington said.
“Keep a porch light on,” he said.
“We don’t want this to lead to more victims,” Pennington said. “We hope he just turns himself in.”
In a message directly to the suspect, Pennington said: “You’re in a lot of trouble — a lot of trouble — but just turn yourself in before anyone else gets hurt.”
U.S. Bank said in a statement, “Our hearts go out to the families of the victims, our colleagues and the entire Berea community. We are committed to supporting the victims’ families and our colleagues. And we will continue to work closely with law enforcement on this active investigation.”
Berea, a city of more than 16,000 people, is roughly 40 miles south of Lexington.
A sign outside a mobile clinic offering measles and flu vaccinations on February 6, 2026 in Spartanburg, South Carolina. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A few months ago, a measles outbreak seemed poised to overwhelm the northern region of South Carolina.
More than 100 infections were being reported every week, with the total eventually surpassing that of last year’s record-setting outbreak in Texas.
However, after six months and nearly 1,000 cases, the outbreak took a dramatic turn in the right direction.
Over the weekend, the South Carolina Department of Public Health said no new cases had been confirmed for 42 days, leading to an announcement on Monday that the outbreak is officially over.
Public health experts told ABC News that the combination of a strong vaccination push, people following isolation and quarantine orders and an awareness campaign helped beat back the disease.
“Measles vaccinations [were] the most effective single containment tool,” Dr. James Harber, an internal medicine physician with Spartanburg Regional Medical Center, told ABC News. “And then to identify the index cases and their exposures and enforcing quarantine, and there’s that integrated public health and private sector collaboration. Those are the keys.”
Vaccination push
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) currently recommends people receive two doses of the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine — the first at ages 12 to 15 months and the second between 4 and 6 years old.
One dose is 93% effective, and two doses are 97% effective against measles, according to the CDC.
In Spartanburg County — the epicenter of the outbreak in northwestern South Carolina — 88.9% of students had the required immunizations needed to attend school, among the lowest in the state, according to state health department data.
This is lower than the 95% threshold needed to achieve herd immunity.
In the wider Upstate region of South Carolina, some pockets have much lower vaccination rates. State data shows that, for the 2025-2026 school year, one elementary and middle school only had 17% of students with the required immunizations.
Of the 997 cases during the outbreak, 932 were among unvaccinated individuals who were mostly under the age of 17, state data shows. Experts told ABC News that a vaccination campaign helped play a big role in reigning in cases.
“We believe vaccination is one of the primary reasons this outbreak came to an end,” Dr. Brannon Traxler, deputy director of health promotion and services and chief medical officer at the state health department, told ABC News. “Thousands of people got vaccinated. An additional 3,788 doses of MMR were administered in Spartanburg County during the six months of the outbreak compared to the previous year.”
Traxler said that 15,000 additional doses were administered in the Upstate counties over this period competed to the year prior.
She added that January and February were record months for MMR vaccination in the state.
The health department does not track vaccine exemptions at the individual level, but Spartanburg Regional Medical Center’s Harber believes some vaccine-hesitant parents were encouraged to vaccinate their children — even those with previous exemptions on file — as the outbreak grew and their kids were exposed to the virus.
“I think the numbers … speak to the idea that that definitely happened,” he said. “Parents and/or young people who have historically requested and been granted exemptions and not been vaccinated saw what was happening within the community and then changed their minds.”
People following isolation, quarantine orders
South Carolina health authorities first confirmed the outbreak on Oct. 2, 2025, after eight cases were recorded in the Upstate region.
Most cases were recorded in Spartanburg County, with some confirmed in neighboring Anderson, Cherokee, Greenville and Pickens counties.
Only two other counties that didn’t border the epicenter saw measles cases: Lancaster County in the north central area and Sumter County in the central area.
Harber said that people generally followed health officials’ orders about quarantine and isolation, which helped keep the outbreak under control
“I think that’s probably the second most important part, the very aggressive quarantine and exposure control when index cases were identified,” he said. “They were very quickly provided with information around isolation and what they needed to do — staying away from others and to help prevent that spread.”
Harber said more than 2,000 quarantine orders were issued and almost 900 students stayed home when they tested positive across 33 schools in the Upstate region.
“That rapid identification and isolation of the suspected cases .. once they were confirmed really helped to prevent that secondary spread that is such a big problem because of how contagious [measles] really is,” he said. “So, we really had great compliance especially within families and that really helped shorten transmission window based on all the data we have.”
Awareness campaigns
Traxler said the state health department conducted wide-range outreach in Spartanburg County and surrounding areas to “educate the public about the facts regarding measles and the outbreak as well as to encourage people to consider being vaccinated to get long-term protection against the virus.”
She noted that the department communicated with schools, churches, community-based organizations, community leaders, local health care professionals and other organizations.
Traxler added that the health department offered vaccinations at mobile health units at libraries, churches and other locations, where workers also distributed educational materials.
Ukrainian and Russian-speaking communities in South Carolina were hard hit by measles during the outbreak, and so the health department translated measles fact sheets and vaccine information into Ukrainian and Russian, as well as Spanish, Traxler said.
However, just because the outbreak is over doesn’t mean the work is done, she added.
Other states are continuing to see measles cases and the U.S. is currently at risk of losing its elimination status, which it earned in 2000. Measles would once again be considered endemic or constantly circulating.
“The outbreak is over, but our work to understand and prevent measles is not. Large outbreaks of measles, and other infectious diseases, can be prevented entirely when vaccine coverage in the population is very high,” Traxler said.
In this photo illustration, a PolyMarket logo is seen displayed on a smartphone with stock market percentages on the background. (Photo Illustration by Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — One week after a special forces soldier was indicted on charges of using classified information to wager on the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the prediction market Polymarket announced it is increasing its internal monitoring of trades.
Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke, who prosecutors say helped plan and execute the raid on Maduro’s Caracas compound, allegedly made more than $400,000 on Polymarket by using insider knowledge to place 13 bets on the outcome of the operation.
On Thursday, Polymarket announced that it had tapped a blockchain data company to continually monitor the platform for suspicious trades.
Polymarket and analytics firm Chainalysis said they are working together on a “first-of-its-kind” system to enforce the Polymarket’s market integrity rules by monitoring transactions on-chain — referring to the platform’s public disclosure of transaction data.
“Polymarket was built on-chain because transparency matters, and our platform shows what markets can look like when trades are open, traceable, and accountable by design,” Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan said in a statement.
Through the partnership, the company is looking to confront the longstanding challenge of insider trading by leaning into a decentralized solution based on the public blockchain — essentially a distributed database — on which it can follow the tracks of every trade based on data that’s permanently stored and sealed with unique identifier.
Chainalysis says they will use their technology to quickly provide law enforcement with “blockchain-verified evidence” to proactively identify threats.
While Polymarket already had a monitoring system for insider trading, both companies say the new partnership will help them quickly identify patterns that suggest an trader with insider knowledge is placing bets.
“With this collaboration, on-chain markets have the potential to be the most trustworthy markets for understanding world events,” Chainalysis CEO Jonathan Levin.
Online sleuths have been successful in flagging suspicious trades such as the bet that prosecutors say Van Dyke placed on Maduro’s capture. Posts about the suspicious wager began appearing online within hours of the trade, and prosecutors then took about four months to build their case.
Van Dyke pleaded not guilty to all charges Tuesday in Manhattan federal court and was released on bond.
Gianni Infantino, President of FIFA, speaks during the 76th FIFA Congress on April 30, 2026, in Vancouver, British Columbia. (Photo by Rich Lam – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Iran will be participating in the 2026 World Cup and will play in the United States, FIFA President Gianni Infantino said in remarks Thursday.
“Of course Iran will play in the United States of America,” he said. “And the reason for that is very simple, dear friends, it’s because we have to unite.”
He added, “We have to bring people together. It is my responsibility, it is our responsibility. Football unites the world, FIFA unites the world, you unite the world, we unite the world.”
Iran said last month it would not participate in the global sporting event amid the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. A ceasefire has been in place since April 7.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Guided-missile destroyer USS Rafael Peralta enforces the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports against M/T Stream after it attempted to sail to an Iranian port, April 26, 2026. (U.S. Central Command)
(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration is seeking the participation of other countries to form an international coalition to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, according to an internal cable sent this week by the State Department to posts around the world.
Dubbed the “Maritime Freedom Construct,” the coalition would help with coordinating diplomatic efforts, including aligning on sanctions and information sharing to help with safe transit through the waterway, according to a U.S. official.
The cable called on diplomats to announce the formation of the new coalition and “ask for partner participation” by Friday.
The Maritime Freedom Construct would take steps to ensure safe passage, including providing real-time information, safety guidance, and coordination to ensure vessels can transit the waters securely, the cable said.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on the cable.
“The MFC’s efforts will enhance maritime domain awareness and support the safe passage of commercial operators and their crews,” a State Department official said.
The United Kingdom and France have already launched a multilateral effort involving 30+ nations toward securing the strait that could eventually involve deploying military assets if a peace deal is reached, according to those countries’ governments.
However, last week during a Pentagon press briefing, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth mocked the European efforts, saying Europe might want to start having “less fancy conferences in Europe and get in a boat.”
He dismissed the U.K. and French effort aimed at ensuring the future security of the critical Gulf waterway as “silly.”
“Europe and Asia have benefited from our protection for decades, but the time for free-riding is over,” he said.
Shahram Irani, Iran’s Navy commander, called the U.S. blockade “piracy” and the U.S. as “maritime terrorists.”
“The Strait of Hormuz is closed from the Arabian Gulf, meaning they have no right of passage from there, and there is no entry. As soon as they come, operational and tactical action is taken against them,” he said.
He went on to call the blockade piracy and american actions as “maritime terrorists”
On Thursday, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned the consequences of continued disruptions to the global energy supply caused by the Iran war and the closure of the strait “grow worse with each passing hour.”
Guterres the worst-case scenario could be “the specter of a global recession” if disruptions to the strait continue through 2026. Even in the best case, if restrictions were relieved today, “supply chains will take months to recover” and warned that developing countries will be hit the hardest by economic instability.
According to the cable, the coalition will be led by the departments of State and Defense through U.S. Central Command.
The State-led component, based in Washington, D.C., will serve as the diplomatic operations hub, uniting partners and the commercial shipping industry. The Pentagon component operating out of CENTCOM headquarters in Florida would coordinate real-time maritime traffic and communicate directly with vessels transiting the Strait, the cable said.
“It will provide a platform to coordinate diplomatic actions and socialize and align economic measures designed to impose costs on Iran for disrupting maritime security,” the State official said.
ABC News’ Desiree Adib contributed to this report.
Debris is piled up at the entrance to Camp Mystic on July 07, 2025 in Hunt, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
(KERR COUNTY, Texas) — Camp Mystic announced that it will not be reopening for the summer amid ongoing investigations into deadly flooding that killed 25 girls and two teen counselors last year.
The camp said it informed the Texas Department of State Health Services on Thursday that it is withdrawing its application for a summer 2026 camp license.
“No administrative process or summer season should move forward while families continue to grieve, while investigations continue and while so many Texans still carry the pain of last July’s tragedy,” Camp Mystic said in a statement.
The Christian all-girls sleepaway camp said it is choosing to withdraw its application for its Cypress Lake location “rather than risk defending our rights under Texas law in a manner that may unintentionally effect further harm.”
Twenty-five campers and two teen counselors died during a devastating Fourth of July flash flood last summer, after rapidly rising waters inundated cabins at the camp’s location along the Guadalupe River. The director of the camp also died.
Camp Mystic said it had planned to welcome more than 800 girls to its Cypress Lake location, which did not experience any fatalities, this summer, before withdrawing its application.
“This decision is intended to remove any doubt that Camp Mystic has heard the concerns expressed by grieving families, members of the Texas House and Senate investigating committees and citizens across our state. Respect for those voices requires that we step back now,” the camp said.
The camp said it will “continue to fully cooperate with all ongoing investigations, comply with every lawful requirement and continue supporting recovery and healing efforts.”
Families of the flood victims and some officials, including Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, had called on the Texas Department of State Health Services to block Camp Mystic’s license for the summer. Patrick said the camp shouldn’t reopen until the flood was fully investigated and any necessary corrective actions were taken.
The license withdrawal comes after the Texas Department of State Health Services notified Camp Mystic last week of nearly two dozen deficiencies in the emergency plan in its license application.
The department said that all camps that had submitted an emergency plan had received a deficiency letter due to statutory changes and increased emergency plan requirements enacted in the wake of the deadly flooding at Camp Mystic.
The tragedy was the focus of an emotional two-day hearing before Texas lawmakers earlier this week. A Houston attorney hired by the state legislature to investigate the deadly flood presented a review based on interviews with approximately 150 people, including campers, counselors, the camp’s owners and the victims’ families.
The attorney, Casey Garrett, said there was inadequate training or drills for counselors and campers regarding a flood threat.
The Texas Rangers have also opened a criminal investigation of Camp Mystic, according to Patrick.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth testifies during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the Defense Department’s budget request on Thursday, April 30, 2026. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a Senate committee on Thursday that dissent from the “cheap seats” in Congress sought to undermine the military’s efforts in its war in Iran only two months into the campaign.
“Defeatists from the cheap seats who, two months in, seek to undermine the incredible efforts that have been undertaken and the historic nature of taking on a 47-year threat,” Hegseth said in his opening statement.
The statement was nearly identical to what he told the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday in the first of two hearings on the Pentagon’s 2027 budget plan in which he faces questions on the war in his first appearances before Congress since the war started in February.
The hearings were scheduled to discuss the Pentagon’s request for a $1.5 trillion budget for 2027, the most the Pentagon has ever requested. In Wednesday’s hearing, Jules Hurst III, the Pentagon comptroller, testified the war has so far cost $25 billion. The Pentagon has said it will ask for $200 billion in supplemental funding for the campaign.
In both hearings, Hegseth asserted the the U.S.’s “biggest adversary” in the war is from within.
“Unfortunately, as I said yesterday, and I’ll say it again today, the biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless naysayers and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans,” he said.
Democratic Rep. Chrissy Houlahan pushed back against Hegseth’s assertion on Wednesday, telling him, “Mr. Secretary, you reserved more words and more time and more vitriol to condemn Democrats than you did for [Chinese President Xi Jinping] and for [Russian Federation President Vladimir] Putin combined. It’s pretty telling to me that you decided to use your words and your time for that.”
Leaving Thursday’s hearing, Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal said, “Secretary Hegseth seems to feel that by attacking the committee, he somehow is persuading the American people. “It’s exactly the opposite — his antagonism and seeming reluctance to tell the truth, I think, is doing this administration and the country a tremendous disfavor. And by refusing to come clean, give us precise numbers on costs, when we know that the true figures are higher than what has been told us, I think just undermines his credibility.”
Democrats and some Republicans in Congress have questioned the rationale behind launching the campaign against Iran, its endgame and the strains it has put on the economy and alliances with U.S. partners.
Hegseth was briefly interrupted by protesters during Thursday’s hearing.
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared to agree with Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker’s assertion that Russia has tried to to undermine the U.S. operation in Iran.
“General Caine, there’s no question that Vladimir Putin’s Russia is taking serious action to undermine our efforts for success in Iran. Is there any question about that?” Wicker asked.
“I think there’s actions and activities. [I’m] mindful of the hearing room we’re in, but there’s, there’s, there’s definitely some action there,” Caine said. Wicker described the war against Iran as a success.
“While we all mourn the tragic loss of the 14 service members who have lost their lives in this conflict, we do so knowing the world is safer without a nuclear Iran,” he said.
But he noted the threat that Iran still poses.
“Most of Iran’s leaders are now deceased, but they and those who survived them have consistently sought violence against America, Israel, our Gulf allies,” Wicker said.
Wicker said Iran was part of an axis of aggressors with China, Russia and North Korea.
“This growing alliance cannot be denied,” the chairman said, adding later that “ties have never been closer among these four … dictatorships.”
Ranking Democrat Jack Reed said that the war has put the U.S. “in a worse strategic position,” pointing out that the Strait of Hormuz had closed because of the war and Iran’s nuclear material remained unaddressed and telling Hegseth his declaration of victory on April 8 was premature.
“Mr. Secretary, I am concerned that you have been telling the president what he wants to hear, instead of what he needs to hear,” Reed said. “Bold assurances of success are a disservice to both the commander-in-chief and the troops who risk their lives based on them. Our military has performed heroically. But military force without a sound strategy is a path to long-term defeat.”
Reed also said cultural erosion has taken place in the military and would lead to “lasting harm.” He pointed to Kid Rock’s recent “joy ride” with Hegseth in Army attack helicopters, the firing of several senior officers, and “troubling” statements he said the secretary had made about the conduct of the war.
“You have made troubling statements about showing ‘no mercy’ and ‘no quarter’ to the Iranians: orders that would constitute war crimes,” Reed said.
Immigrant woman and children walk across a field as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Enforcement and Removal Operations hosts a media tour at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, TX. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
(DILLEY, Texas) — Olivia Mabiala Andre made her youngest brother, Manuel, a promise.
“We’re going to go to the United States and we’re going to get you a bike,” the 19-year-old said she told him.
The promise of the bike for her brother and stability for her entire family of five, Andre said, kept them focused on their plan to travel from their home country of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, through South America and toward the United States. But three days into their journey, Manuel drowned while crossing a river in Colombia.
“He was the happiness of my house. He was the cutest boy you can imagine, he was our sunshine,” Andre said, speaking to ABC News from detention at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas.
Now more than three years after reaching the U.S., Andre and her family are facing deportation to their home country after the U.S. federal government denied their asylum request.
Andre, who was studying to be a nurse, has been detained since November 2025 and was only briefly reunited with her family. She says it is taking a toll.
According to a habeas petition, an independent expert confirmed Andrew “meets the diagnostic criteria for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder” and “has repeatedly expressed suicidal ideation.” Andre also displayed depression symptoms, the court filing claimed.
Their case is receiving national attention, with lawmakers and prominent figures like children’s educator and YouTube star Ms. Rachel calling for Andre’s release.
“It doesn’t make sense to hold this caring, wonderful person who wants to be a nurse who’s been through so much trauma. It’s just cruel to hold her there, especially while she’s having a mental health crisis, and she’s having suicidal thoughts,” said Ms. Rachel, whose real name is Rachel Anne Accurso, in an interview Thursday with ABC’s Diane Macedo.
Accurso says she has been keeping in touch with Andre while she remains detained.
“She’s overflowing compassion and faith and strength and it was a privilege to talk with her. I was so in awe of her,” Accurso said.
Attorneys representing the Andre family tell ABC News they fled their home country after Andre’s mother says she faced direct threats by high-level government officials.
“Her mother has suffered brutal abuse and torture, which led both her mother and her family to need to flee for their lives. They took a difficult journey to the United States, and along the way, Olivia witnessed her eight year old brother who she loved so much, drown on the journey, and it has caused devastating sadness for Olivia, her mother and her two siblings,” their attorney Elora Mukherjee said.
According to court documents, the Andre family entered the U.S. in December 2022 and applied for asylum, settling in Portland, Maine. An immigration judge denied their asylum petition, in part, because they believed they couldn’t provide enough corroborating evidence to support their claim and ordered them deported in February 2025.
The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) later affirmed the immigration judge’s decision, finding that her mother could not provide enough corroborating evidence to support her petition, the documents state.
Todd Pomerleau, who is now representing the family’s asylum case in immigration court, says a language barrier and interpretation issues contributed to the asylum claim being denied.
Days after the BIA denied the family’s appeal, Mukherjee said they attempted to cross into Canada to seek asylum there, but were prevented from doing so, because of a treaty between the two countries called the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement. The treaty prevents some immigrants from seeking asylum in Canada if they’ve been denied a U.S. claim.
“Olivia and her family were desperate in their search for safety, because they know they cannot return to the Democratic Republic of Congo, they’re going to be killed there,” Mukherjee said.
Transfer to Dilley Detention Center
After being transferred to the custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials on Nov. 12, 2025, Andre said she was detained apart from the rest of her family, the habeas petition says.
“They just took them away and put me on a different plane,” Andre said.
According to Andre, she was sent to four different facilities over the course of the following two weeks. She said she would ask personnel at the facility where her family was, but claims she never received an answer.
Andre was then sent to the immigration facility in Dilley, but said she did not know where the rest of her family was being held.
Two weeks later, Andre said she and a friend she made at the detention center were walking to the library when she heard her name being called. Her friend encouraged her to see a counselor at the facility who later determined that the rest of the family was also being held there. They were finally reunited, but held in different sections of the facility, according to her attorneys.
Andre’s mother and two siblings were held in areas reserved for family units, while Andre was held with other single adult women, the attorneys said.
Andre said she later found out that her sister would yell her name out into the yard of the facility every day since being detained in hopes that she would end up at the same facility and hear her.
Andre and her family are now challenging their asylum claim denial. In February, the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals barred the Trump administration from deporting the family until they rule on the case, which could take several months.
Mukherjee filed a request to temporarily release the family while the court case continues. In March, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released Andre’s mother and siblings, but she remains in detention.
Spotlight on the family’s case
Andre’s supporters highlight her accomplishments in the more than three years since coming to the U.S.
According to court documents, Andre graduated from high school in one and a half years. She completed a rigorous training program to become a certified nursing assistant and was in college studying to become a nurse at the time she was detained. She knows multiple languages, which she says can help her treat people from all over the world.
The loss of her brother inspired her to get into the medical field, Andre said.
“When I lost my brother, I was, like, I have to work and do something to help people,” she said.
To date, her attorneys say they have not received a formal reason for why she remains detained despite the government being prohibited from deporting her while her case unfolds in court.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told ABC News the Andre family has “received full due process” and the government will continue trying to deport the family.
“The facts are Olivia Mabiala Andre is an adult illegal alien with a final order of removal and no right to remain in the U.S. If we encounter illegal aliens who should have been detained but were instead released into the country by the Biden administration, we will detain them. The Trump administration is not going to ignore the rule of law,” the spokesperson said.
At times, Andre worries that she’ll be deported back to the Congo and what that would do to her mother.
“She already lost one child, she cannot lose another one,” she said.
