The Missouri mom who inspired a town to Abide in Love.
Liridona “Dona” Ramadani, John’s Waffle & Pancake House co-owner, takes dozens of orders during a fundraiser for employee Carol Mayorga this week in Kennett. The restaurant raised more than $20,000 on Tuesday for Mayorga’s three children and legal costs associated with her detention by ICE officers. Photo by Kavahn Mansouri / The NPR Midwest Newsroom
'Bring Carol home:' ICE snatches rural Missouri mom at immigration check-in
The Midwest Newsroom | By Kavahn Mansouri, Chad Davis
Published May 24, 2025 at 5:00 a.m. CDT
Carol Mayorga sat at a small table inside the Greene County Jail in Springfield, Missouri, on Wednesday morning. She appeared on screen via the jail’s video visitation service, wearing a muted green jumpsuit, her eyeglasses framed by her black hair.
Mayorga, whose legal name is Ming Li Hui, has been detained in jail under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody since late April. She’d traveled from Kennett, Missouri, her home for nearly two decades, to St. Louis for what she thought was a routine meeting to renew her employment authorization document.
The document, issued by the federal government, allows her to work legally in the U.S. and is set to expire in January 2026. […]
Nearly seven hours passed before ICE officers entered the room, placing the 45-year-old woman, whom many residents in Kennett described as a soccer mom, in shackles at the wrists, waist and ankles.…