Maykol Bogoya Duarte was behind the wheel of a 2008 Chevy SUV, headed to Lake Erie Metropark for a school field trip. Three other students from Western International High School were in the vehicle with him. They never made it to the park.
What should have been an ordinary end-of-year outing on May 20 turned into a crisis. A Rockwood police officer accused Maykol of tailgating. The officer later claimed the vehicle was following “at an unsafe distance,” slowed down, then sped up again before being pulled over near Truman Road. According to the police report, the officer said Maykol spoke “in broken English,” shared that he didn’t have a driver’s license, and noted that the other students in the car also lacked one. Rather than request a translator or follow department procedures for traffic stops, the officer contacted U.S. Border Patrol. Minutes later, the high school student was taken into federal custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Maykol, who is 18 and just three credits away from graduation, is now facing deportation from a jail cell in Louisiana.
Since that day, public pressure has been building across Detroit. At the June Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) board meeting, more than 100 community members showed up demanding the district speak out. Many were from Southwest Detroit, home to large immigrant families and a long history of organizing against federal immigration enforcement…