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\t\t\tChellie Pingree, candidate for Congressional District 1, speaks during the Maine Democratic Convention in Portland on Saturday, May 2. (Shawn Patrick Ouellette\/Staff Photographer)<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tChellie Pingree, candidate for Congressional District 1, speaks during the Maine Democratic Convention in Portland on Saturday, May 2. (Shawn Patrick Ouellette\/Staff Photographer)<\/p>\n
Maine Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-1st District, says she will travel to Texas this week to seek the release of a 19-year-old asylum seeker from Portland who was detained last fall, and who remains the only member of her family still in detention.<\/p>\n
Olivia Andre, a nursing assistant originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was arrested by federal immigration enforcement officials in November along with her mother and two siblings. <\/p>\n
Andre remains in detention at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas, while the other three members of her family were released in March.<\/p>\n
Pingree, a Democrat representing Maine\u2019s first district, has been advocating for Andre\u2019s release since April, when she sent a letter to the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She announced her plans to visit the \u201cnotorious\u201d facility during her speech at Saturday\u2019s Maine Democratic State Convention<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cThese months have been the hardest of my life. I feel lost, alone, and many times like I no longer have the strength to keep going,\u201d Pingree read from a letter Andre sent her, before vowing to fight cruelty done \u201cin our name, with our tax dollars\u201d as part of the Trump administration\u2019s immigration agenda. <\/p>\n Immigration officials say\u00a0Andre\u2019s family entered the country illegally. They were ordered by a judge in February 2025 to leave the U.S., their appeal of that order was denied in October, and federal immigration officials arrested the family as they sought asylum in Canada in November. <\/p>\n The family\u2019s detention late last year set off a wave of protest, including a walkout by more than 500 Portland students<\/a> in December.<\/p>\n In March, Andre\u2019s younger siblings, Joel and Estefania, were released<\/a> along with their mother, Carine Balenda Mbizi, and returned to Maine. Joel, a fixture of Portland\u2019s Kennedy Park Pickup Soccer\u00a0games, made a celebrated return to the field<\/a> later that month.<\/p>\n Lawyers for the family successfully argued for their release under the Flores Settlement Agreement, which details protections for people under 18 who have been detained by immigration authorities. But because she is 19, Olivia Andre remains in detention at the Texas facility.<\/p>\n \u201cOur goal is to just bring enough attention to her case to eventually get her out,\u201d Pingree told a reporter after her speech Saturday.<\/p>\n She said she\u2019ll be going with four or five colleagues who also have constituents in Dilley, and plans to bring letters and information from Andre\u2019s family, and investigate whether she is having her healthcare needs met. Pingree said ICE is aware she is coming, and the visit has been formally scheduled. She also noted that a law barring members of Congress from making unannounced visits to ICE facilities was overturned in March.<\/a><\/p>\n A spokesperson for the Congresswoman did not respond to questions Sunday about when specifically Pingree will be in Texas or which other members of Congress she plans to visit with.<\/p>\n Andre\u2019s case has caught national attention, thanks in part to advocacy from Ms. Rachel, the children\u2019s YouTube star and activist who grew up in Maine herself. <\/p>\n