By Mina Corpuz, Katherine Lin and Simeon Gates | Originally published by Mississippi Today
Countdown to graduation had already begun, and Hancock High School was getting ready to celebrate its students and the end of another school year.
Earlier this week was senior breakfast and cap-and-gown day. Friday is the parade for graduating students to walk the halls of their elementary and middle school and see educators who taught them throughout the years.
Missing from the celebration are Israel Makoka, who is set to graduate, and his younger brother Max, exchange students from the Republic of Congo who have been in the United States for over two years and have been living with a host family in Mississippi. On April 21, immigration officials took the teenagers into custody as they waited for the school bus in front of their host family’s home.
Hancock High teacher Stacy Campbell said they deserve to be here for the end-of-year festivities and the education they have been receiving in the United States.
Residents from Diamondhead, the Gulf Coast town where the Makokas have lived, describe the brothers as respectful, kind and eager to learn. They play on the school’s basketball team. People from across the region and beyond have rallied behind the teenagers, calling on state and federal lawmakers to help bring them home. A change.org petition seeking the brothers’ release has received over 3,000 signatures.
“People are angry. They’re angry about how it took place, how the kids were taken, and they want answers,” said Campbell, who taught Max Makoka last fall.
The brothers came to the United States on F-1 student visas and had recently transferred from the private Piney Woods School near Jackson to Hancock High. The brothers were living in Diamondhead with Cliff and Gail Baptiste, their legal guardians and host family.
Max Makoka, a student at Hancock High School, during a basketball game versus Terry High School, Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2026, in Poplarville. Credit: Bobby McDuffie/South Miss 6 Sports
According to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Makokas violated their student visas when they transferred schools. The agency said in a statement that because the brothers were not attending classes at Piney Woods, they are subject to removal from the U.S.
“I hope that they can see that these are two amazing young men whose dream is to get an education in the United States, and nothing was done on their end to fault them for that,” said Campbell, the Hancock High teacher.
Because 15-year-old Max is a minor, he was taken into government custody and transported to Texas. Israel, who turned 18 earlier this year, was placed in an adult immigration detention facility in Louisiana.
Multiple immigration experts said that if this had happened under any previous administration, it might have unfolded differently.
“The first time finding out about it being a problem should not have been law enforcement surrounding the bus,” said Jeremy Litton, a Mississippi-based immigration attorney.
He added that the Department of Homeland Security could have contacted the Baptistes and asked them to come to a field office to address the visa issues.
Litton said that it is unimaginable for anyone to arrest any child without notifying their guardians.
Even if the department had decided to proceed with sending the brothers back to their home country, under past administration the department would have likely let them continue to live with their guardians until the removal proceedings concluded, according to Nayna Gupta, national policy director at the American Immigration Council, a research and policy group.
In January 2025, the Trump administration rescinded Biden-era guidance that restricted where ICE could arrest people. The guidelines list specific examples of “protected areas,” including churches, playgrounds and school bus stops.
As of this month, over 60,000 people are in ICE detention, according to immigration records from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
Last year, the Trump administration instituted a mandatory detention policy that made many immigrants ineligible for a bond hearing.
But because the brothers had visas when they came to the United States, Litton said Israel Makoka could be eligible for bond, which would allow him to leave the detention center and stay with his host family and await an immigration judge’s decision.
From October 2025 to February 2026, immigration judges held nearly 29,000 bond hearings but only granted bond in about 8,000 cases, according to TRAC.
To receive bond, a detainee or attorney has to convince a judge that the person is not a flight risk or danger to the community. This is similar to how bond is considered in criminal cases at the state and federal level.
