They Left for the School Bus. ICE Picked Them Up Instead.

Two teenage brothers from the Republic of Congo were living their version of the American dream. They were leaders on their high school basketball team and involved in their local church. The elder was weeks away from graduating.

That dream was thrown into upheaval this month when the brothers were detained by ICE agents who had waited outside their guardians’ home in Diamondhead, Miss. Israel Makoka, 18, and Max Makoka, 15, were leaving to take the bus to school when they were arrested and later moved to separate facilities, in Louisiana and Texas, where they remained on Wednesday.

Their detention has crushed the school community in their conservative small town.

“I’m heartbroken over what’s taking place,” said Stacy Campbell, a history teacher at the brothers’ school, Hancock High in Kiln, Miss., who knows the Makokas. “They definitely do not deserve this. Some of the students are just starting to talk about it, and they are very worried. They want their classmates back at school.”

The Makoka brothers entered the United States legally on F-1 student visas to attend the Piney Woods School, a prominent, historically Black boarding institution. But they felt unhappy there last year, so they transferred to a public school in their host family’s neighborhood.

Before the teenagers transferred to Hancock High in August, a local lawyer advised their host family to become their legal guardians so that they could remain in the country. A judge granted the guardianship request.

The staff at Piney Woods did not warn the family that the teenagers’ transfer to a public school would affect their immigration status, regardless of guardianship, said Amy Maldonado, the immigration lawyer representing the brothers.