![\"Two](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Israel-and-Max-Makoka_courtesy-Baptiste-Family.jpg\")
Israel and Max Makoka have spent summers and school breaks with the Baptiste family in Diamondhead, Miss., for years. Last year, they moved in full time after transferring to Hancock High School in nearby Kiln. Photo courtesy Baptiste Family<\/p>\nThe Makoka brothers were waiting for the school bus when ICE came. On an unremarkable Tuesday, April 21, at the curb of their street in Diamondhead, Mississippi, their host father, Cliff Baptiste, noticed an unfamiliar car loitering nearby. His fear was immediate, but muted; Israel, 18, and Max, 15, had been living legally in the United States on F-1 student visas since 2023 and 2024, respectively.<\/p>\n
Baptiste approached cautiously, asking the driver what he was doing. A neighbor had told him ICE had been in their neighborhood days before. Baptiste informed the agent that two boys from the Republic of the Congo were living with him, but that he had all their paperwork. The agent waved him off, he said, asserting he was looking for a deadbeat dad, not two young immigrants.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Baptiste didn\u2019t believe him. This conversation, he said, was the first moment he\u2019d had any reason to believe the boys were at risk. The bus arrived, Max and Israel approached, and within seconds, 10 unmarked cars surrounded the scene. ICE agents detained Israel and Max and in short order, zip-tied them both.<\/p>\n
Neither of the Makoka brothers has been accused of or charged with a crime. Their immigration status was in good form as late as fall of last year. They are, by all accounts, model students and athletes at Hancock High School in Kiln, Mississippi, having recently transferred from the Piney Woods Country Life School in Rankin County. Now, they are in ICE custody, on track for deportation. Gail Baptiste, their host mother, was still in the bedroom when her granddaughter sprinted in.<\/p>\n
\u201cNana,\u201d she said, \u201cthey have the boys.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gail Baptiste spoke with the Mississippi Free Press on April 22, moments after leaving the Hancock County Adult Detention facility in Waveland. The last time either of the Baptistes had seen Israel, agents were hauling him into an unmarked car. Now he was with them in a visiting room, clad in the green-white stripes of a prisoner.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aHe\u2019s trying to hold it together,\u201d Gail told this reporter. \u201cI know he was holding back tears. Probably because I wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s first concern was for his brother. ICE separated Max, only 15, from both Israel and the host family shortly after his detention. When Gail Baptiste spoke to the Mississippi Free Press on April 22, he had been gone for over a day. ICE officials told her he was being removed to a safe place, but neither the Baptistes nor the Makoka family back home in Congo could get in touch with Max, or find out where he was.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It would be days before they would learn that the Office of Refugee Resettlement had taken him out of the state, the standard protocol for an unaccompanied minor. Max hadn\u2019t been alone before. But his host family\u2014legally his guardians\u2014were now far away. And his brother was strapped into a bus to the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Facility in Jena.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
As the days passed, the reality of it all set in. \u200a\u201cThese are stellar kids. Educated, focused, know what they want to be already,\u201d Cliff said. \u201cThey\u2019re good kids, man, and it\u2019s sad that they have to go through this.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018They\u2019re Out of Status\u2019<\/p>\n
What could have caused this? Gail Baptiste told the Mississippi Free Press that she immediately ran outside to hand the ICE agents her guardian paperwork, documentation made under the advice of a lawyer and signed off on by a judge, designating the Makokas as under the care of the Baptistes. The agents shrugged, informing her that the paperwork meant nothing to them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re out of status,\u201d one of the agents told Gail. \u201cThey\u2019re here illegally.\u201d<\/p>\n
Israel and Max Makoka have spent summers and school breaks with the Baptiste family in Diamondhead, Miss., for years. Last year, they moved in full time after transferring to Hancock High School in nearby Kiln. Photo courtesy Baptiste Family<\/p>\n
As the day unfolded, the family learned that one decision lay at the heart of the chaos: the transfer from Piney Woods to Hancock High School, about two-and-a-half hours south on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Piney Woods is a private institution, a historically Black boarding school that caters to many foreign exchange students from the Caribbean and Africa. Hancock is a public school, the kind of institution where it is much harder to maintain an active F-1 visa and I-20 status, meaning legal stay for a foreign student.<\/p>\n
Somewhere in the transfer, and without any warning reaching the Baptistes or the Makokas, the brothers fell out of status. In earlier times, the finding that the brothers had lost their status might have triggered an opportunity for them to more immediately fix the issue, possibly at Hancock High School or another institution more suited to maintain their visa and eligibility.<\/p>\n
Not now under the second Trump administration\u2019s harsh administration of immigration enforcement. Neither Israel nor Max had any notion that their status was at risk until the moment ICE took them outside their home in Diamondhead.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aWe should have had a warning,\u201d Cliff Baptiste said in an April 26 interview. \u201cWe should have had time to fix this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since 1998, the Baptistes have helped almost a hundred American and foreign exchange students get scholarships, many of them athletic scholarships earned in part through basketball showcases. As time passed, they began receiving contacts from across the globe, opening their homes to students who had opportunities to become scholars and athletes in U.S. schools. Never before, Gail said, have they run into trouble with immigration services.<\/p>\n
At this stage, it is still unclear where the points of failure occurred, including which agencies or institutions sent and received warnings that the Makoka brothers were on track for swift detention and deportation. It may matter as they face hearings for bond and for final determination of their status\u2014a chance to maintain the life they\u2019ve been building in America for years.<\/p>\n
Lindsay Williams, an ICE public affairs officer, told the Mississippi Free Press in an April 23 statement that \u201cthe matter is under investigation,\u201d and declined to comment further.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Israel-Makoka_courtesy-Baptiste-Family-1.jpg\")
Israel Makoka holds a certificate from the French Honor Society. Photo courtesy Baptiste Family<\/p>\n
The sudden capture of the Makoka brothers is yet another chapter in the second Trump administration\u2019s supercharged detention regime. Full removal has gained steam in 2026, while still lagging behind administration targets, but a pitiless crackdown on clerical errors, edge cases and non-criminal residents has left the nation\u2019s immigrant detention camps bursting at the seams. The administration is scrambling to open new detention centers, like one proposed ICE megaprison in Byhalia, Mississippi<\/a>, that would have held 8,500 immigrants until Sen. Roger Wicker convinced the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to cancel it<\/a>.<\/p>\n Thousands of foreign students have found their F-1 visas terminated for minuscule infractions<\/a>\u2014traffic tickets, dismissed charges, all triggering an aggressive push to have their status terminated and their time in the United States cut short through detention, actions that federal courts eventually reversed<\/a>. Countless more have faced visa termination, with students detained and placed in removal for actions like protesting against the nation of Israel\u2019s mass bombing campaign in Gaza<\/a>.<\/p>\n And in a cruel twist, the Makoka family in Congo cannot come to be here for their sons. The Republic of Congo is on Trump\u2019s travel ban, barring entry to its citizens since July 2025.<\/p>\n Thus far, ICE has not suggested that Israel and Max Makoka are accused of even a traffic violation, nor have they been part of any protest movement. But now they are separated, held in two other states and facing removal. They leave behind a community that keenly feels their absence.<\/p>\n \u2018Done Nothing But Make This Community Better\u2019<\/p>\n Hancock High School Head Basketball Coach Conner Entriken expected an adjustment period when he first met Israel and Max Makoka. It should come as no surprise that the majority of his high school basketball team in Kiln<\/a> hail from the Gulf Coast and not Brazzaville.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s something you think of as a coach\u2014how\u2019s this gonna gel? They\u2019re coming from a different culture, a different place in the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The boys started the year as strangers, an arrangement that dissipated almost immediately. Entriken speaks of them glowingly.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve done nothing but make this community, this school and this team much, much better since they\u2019ve arrived,\u201d he said. \u201c\u200aThey have turned our locker room into probably the closest team that we\u2019ve ever had. I think that really started when they showed up. The brotherhood and the togetherness that they\u2019ve exemplified\u2014it has been unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n Pastor James Reardon serves the congregation of The Church at 112 in Pass Christian. It was fall in 2025, and he needed a guitarist. That\u2019s how he met Israel, who went to school with his daughter. His talent, both on the court and off, was remarkable. But it was his character that most impressed Rearden.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been a pastor for almost 20 years now, and it\u2019s rare to have met someone as humble and respectful as Israel,\u201d Rearden said. Even aside from his basketball career, Rearden saw a bright future in America for the young man. \u201cHe\u2019s just incredibly bright. Israel\u2019s mind is fantastic. There\u2019s a college that he\u2019d already committed to that he had a scholarship for.\u201d<\/p>\n Colleges are better equipped to handle the maintenance of F-1 visas than public high schools, a detail that already seems to haunt Gail Baptiste. Israel was weeks away from completing his senior year. He turned 18 only weeks before ICE detained him.<\/p>\n The Baptistes are committed to fighting for the rights of both Israel and Max to stay in the United States legally. First, their goal is to reunite the family, behind accomplishing the return of Max from his custody with ORR and securing Israel\u2019s bond so that he might depart the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Facility to come home to Diamondhead.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Israel-Makoka_cred-Bobby-McDuffie_-South-Miss-6-Sports.jpg\")
Hancock High Coach Conner Entriken told the Mississippi Free Press that the Makoka brothers elevated the entire team\u2019s spirit like never before. Israel Makoka is seen here playing for Hancock High School during a match against Hattiesburg High School in Kiln, Miss., on Friday, Feb. 20, 2026. Photo by Bobby McDuffie\/ South Miss 6 Sports<\/a><\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Max-Makoka_cred-Bobby-McDuffie_-South-Miss-6-Sports.jpg\")
Max and Israel Makoka missed the Monday, April 27, 2026, ceremony where Israel was to receive his cap and gown. Max Makoka is seen here leaping for a goal while playing for Hancock High School during a match against Hattiesburg High School in Kiln, Miss., on Friday, Feb. 20, 2026.