Olivia Andre thought the worst was behind her.

She and her family escaped repression and torture in the Democratic Republic of Congo. On the journey to America in 2022 her 8-year-old brother died. They arrived in Maine and spent three years rebuilding their lives from nothing. Three years of trying to heal. Three years of trying to belong.

Then ICE showed up.

In November, immigration officers arrested the family. Olivia, now 19, was detained separately as an adult. For weeks she had no idea where her family was. Then one day inside the detention facility she heard a voice calling her name. It was her sister. Her family was being held in a separate section of the same building.

They had survived Congo together. They had survived the journey together. They had survived three years of rebuilding together. And now they were separated by a wall inside an American detention center.

This family did everything right. They fled documented persecution. They came to America seeking safety. They rebuilt their lives in Maine. They are not a threat. They are survivors.

Detaining refugees who fled torture is not border security. It is cruelty. And separating a 19-year-old from her family after everything they have already survived is unconscionable.

We are calling on ICE and the Department of Homeland Security to release Olivia Andre and her family immediately and to stop detaining refugees with documented persecution claims.

Sign this petition and tell DHS: Olivia's family has survived enough. Let them go.

Photo: Brianna Soukup for NBC News