Judge Orders Release of 19-Year-Old Congolese Woman From ICE Detention

Olivia Andre, a 19-year-old nursing student from Congo, said she was "in shock" and overjoyed after a federal district court in San Antonio ordered her release from ICE custody by Friday. Andre has been held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas for about six months, even after her mother and two younger siblings were released in March.

She said she learned of the order on Wednesday and immediately called her mother in Maine. “I couldn’t believe it. I started crying, shaking,” Andre said Thursday in her first interview since the ruling. ” The court found that Andre’s right to due process was violated and that her detention was unlawful, according to court documents.

Upon release she will join her mother, Carine Mbizi, her 16-year-old brother and 14-year-old sister in Maine. A federal appeals court has blocked the family’s deportation for now as it reviews their asylum case, a process that could take months or longer, said Elora Mukherjee, an attorney who represents the family.

>"It is unconscionable that ICE detained Olivia for six months and continues to detain her today," — Elora Mukherjee (@NBCNews) Mukherjee, a Columbia Law School professor and director of its Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, said the Trump administration had no lawful basis for detaining Andre.

She stated that Andre’s mental and physical health deteriorated during detention because she did not have access to sufficient clean drinking water, palatable food or appropriate medical care.

Andre and her family fled repression and torture in Congo and suffered the death of her 8-year-old brother on their journey to the United States in 2022. The family filed for asylum as a unit after arriving in December 2022, when Andre was still a minor.

She remains part of their asylum application now under review by a federal circuit court. In the months before their detention in November, the family’s asylum case and an appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals were denied. The family then sought refuge in Canada.

Under a U.S.-Canada agreement, asylum seekers must request protection in the first safe country they reach. Canadian authorities returned them to the United States, where immigration officials detained Andre separately as an adult. Andre’s mother and siblings were sent to the Dilley center.

Andre was moved between facilities for about two weeks before arriving at Dilley, where she was housed in a section for single adults. The family was later allowed brief meetings. ICE eventually granted parole to Andre’s mother and siblings, releasing them while Andre remained detained.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said the facts of the case have not changed and described Andre as an adult with a final order of removal and no right to remain in the United States. The spokesperson stated that an activist judge is releasing her onto American streets and that under President Trump, the department will continue to seek the removal of those with no right to be in the country.

Lawmakers including Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, and children’s entertainer Ms. Rachel had called for Andre’s release. CoreCivic, the company that operates the Dilley facility under federal contract, said it does not enforce immigration laws, have any say in deportation or release decisions, or know the circumstances of people placed in its facilities.

Andre said she had recurring nightmares about watching her brother die in a river crossing and not being able to save him. Her mother said being released without her daughter further traumatized her, noting she had already lost one child on the journey to the United States.