‘We Are All Immigrants’ — a high school student aims to unite with children’s book
Max Spencer
(NEW YORK) — Immigration can be a hot-button topic, something frequently discussed on cable news and splashed across the headlines. But to one enterprising young author, it’s also the perfect material for a children’s book that helps young people understand each other’s roots.
Last month, Scarsdale, New York, high school senior Max Reddy Spencer wrote and self-published a children’s book titled “We Are All Immigrants.”
Spencer, the son of an Indian American mother and a white American father, said he was motivated to share the message that we are all more alike than different.
“We Are All Immigrants” follows the story of a young boy with a very similar background as Spencer’s. But he said he wanted the character to stand in for every child.
“I didn’t name the protagonist in the book,” he told ABC News. “I did that intentionally, actually, as a way to try to make the boy represent all of us and also not be the highlight of the story … I wanted the characters he interacted with to be the center of focus and attention.”
Through the boy’s journey in the book, he discovers that most people in his life who live in the United States are, in fact, immigrants. Whether it be his Venezuelan American neighbor, his Taiwanese American teacher, or his Italian American lunch cook, he begins to understand the fabric of his community is woven from different, diverse backgrounds.
Spencer said his book aims to make conversations about immigration more accessible to children, and it doubles as a coloring book with illustrations generated by artificial intelligence.
For Spencer, immigration is deeply personal, he said. His maternal grandparents immigrated from India. His grandfather was from a tiny, rural village in south India called Pathur, in Andhra Pradesh, India. His grandmother’s hometown was called Madanapalle.
Spencer said he grew up understanding America is built on immigration and that his goal in writing the book was to teach children about immigration, while also encouraging people to reflect on their similarities.
“I am very much pro-immigration from an economic and cultural perspective, but I am mostly just trying to remind our country that we are all far more similar than we are different,” he said. “I know that is obviously far more than my little book can do. But that was a big piece of what I was trying to share.”
Previously, Spencer started an initiative called the Inspiration Project, which collects and distributes free children’s books to underserved communities. His goal is to collect more than 3,000 children’s books to redistribute before he graduates high school. He estimated he’s collected at least 2,000 so far.
Spencer said he is donating all the proceeds from “We Are All Immigrants” to the organization Hearts & Homes for Refugees, a New York-based organization that helps resettle refugee families.
The entrance to the state-managed immigration detention center dubbed Alligator Alcatraz, located at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in the Florida Everglades on August 03, 2025 in Ochopee, Florida. oe Raedle/Getty Images
(OCHOPEE, Fla.) — For a month, Rafael Collado couldn’t tell the night from the day.
Detained in the temporary detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” he spent his time confined in a chain-link cage with another man, stuck in what his fiancee Sonia Bichara described as a legal purgatory — unaware of why he was detained, where he might be sent, and how long he would be stuck in the controversial Florida facility.
“They don’t see the daylight. They don’t know what time it is. He’ll call me and say, ‘What time is it? What day is it?'” said Bichara, who said she speaks with Collado daily. “You don’t know if it rains, you don’t know if it’s sunny out there, you don’t know if it’s dark — it’s like you’re dead alive.”
Collado’s experience is far from unique, according to immigration attorneys and advocates who have raised concerns about what they say are inhumane conditions at the migrant detention center. While a federal judge last week blocked further construction at the facility, the state of Florida is still permitted to house thousands of detainees at the site, which is located on a sparsely used airstrip in the Everglades.
“I have never, ever heard of any conditions coming close to those that are presently in existence and Alligator Alcatraz,” said Eric Lee, an attorney who represents a former detainee at the facility. “It’s bordering on torture, based on what I’m hearing from people.”
According to Bichara, Collado told her he spends nearly every moment of his day locked in a chain-link cage inside a large white tent, which frequently floods when it rains. Mosquitoes and other insects swarm around, temperatures fluctuate from sweltering Florida heat to bone-shaking cold from industrial air conditioners, and access to medical attention is limited, according to Bichara.
Neither the Florida Division of Emergency Management nor the Department of Homeland Security responded to a request for comment regarding the allegations.
The facility, which is funded by the federal government and run by the state of Florida, was dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” by federal officials because it’s surrounded by alligator-infested swampland.
During a visit of the facility last month, President Donald Trump said the center could be a new standard for migrant detention facilities in the U.S.
“I mean, you don’t always have land so beautiful and so secure,” Trump said. “They have a lot of bodyguards and a lot of cops that are in the form of alligators. You don’t have to pay them so much but I wouldn’t want to run through the Everglades for long. It will keep people where they’re supposed to be. This is a very important thing.”
In a legal filing Wednesday, as part of a lawsuit filed last month against the Trump administration over detainees’ access to legal counsel, several attorneys with clients being held at the facility said they haven’t been able to have full access to their clients.
They claim the facility does not allow private calls between attorneys and clients, or have publicly available information about visitation hours, email contacts, and procedures for exchanging legal documents. Attorneys and family members told ABC News detainees are able to make some calls to family members from the detention center.
“These open and non-confidential visitation tents are very much unlike any other facility I have ever seen,” said attorney Vilerka Solange Bilbao, who submitted a declaration Wednesday as part of the lawsuit. “Typically, detention facilities provide enclosed confidential rooms for attorney-client visitation.”
In her declaration, Solange Bilbao said that her client claims that “several people were running fevers and showing COVID symptoms without being separated from the general population; that bathrooms were often out of order or overflowing; that rainwater regularly flooded the tents; and that medical requests were ignored.”
“He and others cannot tell whether it is day or night unless they ask because there is no natural light or clock,” Solange Bilbao said.
“These conditions are not only inhumane — the lack of basic care and communication access directly obstruct my ability to provide effective representation,” she said.
Several attorneys also claimed on Wednesday that people who were moved to “Alligator Alcatraz” were removed from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainee locator system, which typically provides online information about detainees’ current location.
“I’ve never seen treatment so deliberately cruel and explicit, more or less explicitly aimed at disincentivizing people from immigrating to the United States based on how they’re treated,” Lee said.
“He says it is worse than prison,” said Bichara of her fiance.
Collado would know, she says. He served a 17-year prison sentence after being convicted of drug charges in the U.S. in the 1990s, and of assaulting a fellow inmate. He’s paid the price for his crimes, Bichara said, and they planned to spend the rest of their lives together in a retirement community in Miami Gardens, Florida.
“He said, ‘I’ve been good for eight years. I don’t even have a speeding ticket. I’ve been paying my debt. You know, I’ve been doing well,'” she said.
Those plans were thrown into uncertainty last month when Collado, who came to the U.S. from Cuba, reported to a federal facility in Miramar, Florida, to complete an annual check-in due to his I-94 status, which gives legal authorization to be in the U.S. to those who entered the country with a temporary visa.
Federal officials detained him during the check-in and sent him to the recently constructed detention facility in the Everglades, according to his fiancee.
Bichara alleges that officials failed to provide Collado with his antidepressant medication during the first two weeks of his detention. He only got his medication, she said, after he unsuccessfully tried to take his own life.
Lee raised similar concerns about the medical conditions at the facility. He said his client Luis Manuel Rivas Velasquez fell sick last week and collapsed, but detention center officials allegedly ignored his pleas for medical attention.
“His cellmates had to drag him down a hallway where guards didn’t even know how to take his pulse to check whether he was still alive,” Lee said.
Both Collado and Rivas Velasquez have since been transferred out of “Alligator Alcatraz” to facilities in Texas, where their families have struggled to contact them, advocates said.
Bichara says she doesn’t know how to help her fiance at this point. Three different lawyers have advised her that challenging Collado’s detention would be costly and unlikely to succeed.
For now, she’s getting legal assistance from a nonprofit, but she worries that she might not see her partner again.
“Emotionally, I don’t know how to explain myself, because I don’t know what to say,” she said. “I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to do.”
At a press conference on Thursday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said that since the opening of “Alligator Alcatraz,” the state has seen an increase in the number of migrants voluntarily leaving the country. DeSantis said the state will be opening a new immigration detention facility, dubbed “‘Deportation Depot,” that “will have the same services that you have at Alligator Alcatraz.”
“We’ve been securing the border, enforcing immigration laws and removing illegal aliens who are in our society now, sending them back to their home country,” DeSantis said. “We have done more on this than any other state by a country mile.”
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) created this computer-generated sketch of an unidentified murder victim in 2003. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children via Fairfax County Police
(FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va.) — A 4-year-old boy who was killed more than 50 years ago has finally been identified thanks to genetic genealogy — but mysteries surrounding his murder, and what happened to his baby brother, remain.
On June 13, 1972, the little boy’s body was found under a bridge in Lorton, Virginia, according to Fairfax County police. He died from blunt force trauma and the case was ruled a homicide, police said.
For over 50 years, police worked to find his name and what caused his tragic murder.
Now, he’s been identified as Carl Matthew Bryant, who died weeks after his 4th birthday, Fairfax County police announced on Monday.
Authorities said the breakthrough came thanks to genetic genealogy, which uses an unknown person’s DNA to trace his or her family tree. His DNA profile was obtained from just a few millimeters of hair, police said, and then genetic genealogy helped detectives track the little boy’s family to Philadelphia.
Through a relative, detectives zeroed in on Vera Bryant as the mother, police said. Vera Bryant died in 1980; her body was exhumed and DNA confirmed she was Carl’s mom, police said.
Detectives believe Vera Bryant and her boyfriend James Hedgepeth were involved in Carl’s death, police said. Hedgepeth, who served time for murder before he started dating Vera Bryant, is also deceased, police said.
Although Carl has a name, police are now searching for his little brother.
Vera Bryant had a 6-month-old boy named James Bryant, and detectives believe the missing baby was killed around the same time as his older brother, police said.
In June 1972, Vera Bryant and James Hedgepeth traveled from Philadelphia to Hedgepeth’s relatives in Middlesex County, Virginia. When the couple arrived, they didn’t have her sons with them, police said. Over Thanksgiving in 1972, when the couple visited Vera Bryant’s family in Philadelphia, Vera Bryant told them the children were in Virginia with Hedgepeth’s family, police said. The couple never reported the boys missing, police added.
Detectives believe James Bryant’s body may have also been left along the couple’s route between Philadelphia and Virginia in June 1972, police said.
At a news conference on Monday, Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis praised the detectives who did the “hard work” to identify Carl.
“You still knock on doors, you still talk to family members, you still talk to potential witnesses,” Davis said. He also highlighted the power of genetic genealogy, which he said allows the department to “bring closure far, far more often than we ever have.”
“To see the extent of that boy’s injuries and what he had suffered through, I’m happy to be here today announcing that at least we’ve identified him,” detective Melissa Wallace added. “He can have his name, we can get him his name back on his gravestone and the family can have some semblance of closure or resolution.”
The homicide investigation is ongoing. The Fairfax County Police Department urges anyone with information to call its Major Crimes Bureau at 703-246-7800, option 2.
(KUNA, Idaho) — Kristi Goncalves stared down Bryan Kohberger, who violently murdered her 21-year-old daughter Kaylee, telling him at his sentencing, “May you continue to live your life in misery. You are officially the property of the state of Idaho.”
Now, the state of Idaho has sent Kohberger to the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, the Idaho Department of Corrections confirmed to ABC News.
This week, ABC News toured 30-year-old Kohberger’s new home, which has the capacity to house 535 of some of the most dangerous and violent male offenders, including death row inmates.
But officials said they find the 49 inmates currently serving life sentences to be the “easiest to manage — because this is home, and will always be home.”
The tan, nondescript building has a double perimeter fence reinforced with razor wire and an electronic detection system.
All inmates abide by a regimented schedule that includes three meals a day (including vegan options), education programing, mentorships and recreation, officials said.
However, “a typical day is not typical,” officials said, explaining that days sometimes get derailed by disorderly behavior. Fruit is restricted because some inmates use it to brew alcohol, sometimes 5 gallons at time, officials said.
Some inmates communicate with each other through the vents. A big request from inmates can be for a better or particular “vent-mate,” officials said.
The prison has multiple layers of housing operations, including “close custody” — the most restrictive, where inmates spend 23 hours a day in a cell and are moved in restraints — and “protective custody,” for those who might be at risk if placed elsewhere. “Protective custody” is often at the request of the inmate, officials said. There’s also mental health housing and long-term restrictive housing.
The most restrictive common area has metal chairs and tables bolted to the floor with enclosures that look like cages for inmates to have video calls. Metal and cement enclosures are also scattered around the outdoor recreation area to be used as needed.
Before Kohberger is placed, his needs will be assessed in a process that can take between seven and 14 days, officials said. Kohberger will be kept isolated for his safety and the safety of others during that time, officials said.
Though Kohberger’s case has concluded, a motive remains unknown. Moscow police said they don’t know which victim was the specific target and have not found any link between Kohberger and the victims.
“You’re always wanting to get the families the why,” but “sometimes they don’t get to have the why,” James Fry, who was the Moscow police chief at the time of the murders, told ABC News on Wednesday.
But Fry says “new information could come out still.”
“There’s always cases that, you know, 10 years later, somebody says something,” he said.
ABC News’ Jenna Harrison contributed to this report.
