An 18-year-old Detroit high school student has been in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody for three weeks, awaiting deportation to his home country of Colombia.
On May 20, Maykol Bogoya-Duarte was driving with three other students to join a field trip at Lake Erie Metropark when he was pulled over by Rockwood police for allegedly tailgating another vehicle. When the arresting officer needed translation assistance, they called Customs and Border Protection. That’s according to Ruby Robinson, an attorney at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center. MIRC is representing Bogoya-Duarte.
Now Bogoya-Duarte, who was just 3.5 credits away from earning his high school diploma from Western International High School, is being held by ICE in a correctional facility in the Upper Peninsula.
Stateside reached out to the Detroit office for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, asking for comment on Bogoya-Duarte's case. We have not yet received a response.
Robinson told Stateside that before Bogoya-Duarte was detained, he had been working to comply with a pre-existing final order of deportation by requesting the necessary travel documents. He had hoped to complete his high school education by the end of the calendar year before returning to Colombia. Now, Robinson said, while “other students are focused on finishing their final exams and looking forward to the summer, he is dreading a potential deportation flight.”
Hannah Dellinger, who has been reporting on Bogoya-Duarte’s case for Chalkbeat Detroit, told Stateside that the arrest has sparked fear and anger at Western International, which serves a large immigrant community in Detroit. She said advocates for Bogoya-Duarte’s release were planning to speak at a Detroit Public Schools Community District school board meeting on Tuesday, June 10, to demand that the district condemn his arrest.
DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti told Dellinger that the district does not have the power to protect students from immigration enforcement when they are outside of school grounds. And because Bogoya-Duarte had not obtained permission to attend the field trip, he was not technically under the responsibility of the school when he was arrested, according to Vitti. School police officers have been in contact with immigration agents, Dellinger said, but “district officials are saying, ‘You know, there’s really nothing that we could have done.’”
In the months since the Trump administration ended a Biden-era policy excluding schools from immigration enforcement, ICE has not attempted to enter DPSCD property, Dellinger said. District policy requires ICE to present a judicial warrant in order to enter campus.
“But what’s happening outside of the school is still obviously impacting the school community and the students and families that the schools are serving,” Dellinger said.
Attorney Ruby Robinson emphasized that Bogoya-Duarte is not requesting permanent legal status—just a chance to finish his education.
“The reality is this is someone who is in high school, who's three-and-a-half credits away from graduating, was otherwise in compliance in terms of trying to finalize and carry out his ultimate deportation from the United States,” Robinson said. “And what we are asking for here is for the grace of three-and-a-half more credits, essentially six more months, for him to be able to do so.”
