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Maykol Bogoya-Duarte, an undocumented immigrant, hoped to finish high school in Detroit before returning to Colombia. That dream is likely over, his attorney said Wednesday, after his request for a stay of deportation was denied.
The Western International High School junior is in an immigration processing center in Louisiana, and his deportation is imminent, according to his legal team at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center. Once Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, “have enough individuals to fill a plane to Colombia,” Maykol will likely be sent out of the U.S., Christine Sauvé, the organization’s communications manager, told Chalkbeat.
Even as dozens of people supporting Maykol packed the Detroit school board meeting Tuesday night, Ruby Robinson, his attorney, got word that the student had been moved to the Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center in Louisiana. The news wasn’t a good sign – most charter ICE charter flights out of the country leave from Louisiana or Texas, the attorney said.
Officials from ICE did not immediately respond to confirm the status of Maykol’s case or his whereabouts.
The Detroit Public Schools Community District school board on Tuesday night made a public statement urging for the teen’s release so he can finish high school. Board members had been quiet about publicly advocating for Maykol’s release until hearing more than two hours of public comment from community members urging them to act.
Before the district made the statement, Robinson said support for the teen from his school would help his immigration case.
Superintendent Nikolai Vitti told Chalkbeat last week that the district has “done everything it can to protect students” while they are on school grounds. He added that Maykol was not “under the protection and responsibility of” the district when he was arrested during a traffic stop in May.
“Please help him,” one of Maykol’s friends pleaded with the board at the meeting through a translator.
Another speaker from Maykol’s neighborhood said the student’s detention is “heartbreaking” and “horrifying.”
Paula Duran, a parent of two students in the district, told the board ICE’s recent actions in the city, including detentions of students’ family members, are “destroying” the school community.
“All of us are impacted by this – the whole DPSCD community and the whole city of Detroit,” she said.
Multiple teachers told the board Maykol was a good student and a hard worker. He worked late night shifts as a doorman at a hotel, but always came to school eager to learn.
The teen was focused on earning his diploma and was only 3.5 credits away from his goal.
Maykol was arrested and detained by ICE after Rockwood police pulled him over for allegedly tailgating another car. He was driving a group of other newcomer boys as they attempted to join a field trip to Lake Erie Metropark, about 25 miles away from Detroit.
The boys had not turned in parental permission slips on time to join the trip on school buses with the other 70 to 80 other students who went, said Kristen Schoettle, one of his teachers.
“The kids wanted to be with the rest of their friends on the trip,” Schoettle told Chalkbeat.
As he was getting pulled over, Maykol called a friend in his class who was on the trip. The friend alerted Schoettle and other teachers. Schoettle said she asked an employee at the park to give her a ride to the scene of the traffic stop.
Once she arrived, the teacher said the Rockwood police did not speak Spanish and were having trouble communicating with Maykol. At that point, the police called Customs and Border Protection to translate for them, according to Robinson.
The teen wasn’t licensed to drive, according to Robinson, and only had a city identification card.
The teen already had been going through the legal process to return to Colombia. A judge issued a final order of deportation for the student in 2024, and Maykol was working with immigration officials and the Colombian Consulate to obtain a passport and the documentation he needed to board a plane with his mother.
Maykol planned on completing high school at Western International while those arrangements were made.
But those plans fell apart at the traffic stop.
Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.
