Israel and Max Makoka Are Coming Home After ICE Arrests Galvanized Their Mississippi Community

Israel and Max Makoka are coming home. Just over a week has passed since ICE detained the brothers while they were waiting for their bus to Hancock High School outside their Diamondhead, Mississippi, home on April 21 and separated them across two other states. Now, the two teens from the Republic of Congo are free once more—returning to their host parents, Gail and Cliff Baptiste, to begin the legal battle to remain in the U.S.

Israel spoke to the Mississippi Free Press on Thursday afternoon, shortly after being reunited with his brother in Texas.

“ God is consistent,” he said. “Just keep addressing him. And if you’re around people who show love to you, who support you, just know that you’re blessed. It’s a blessing to be around a community who cares about you.”

Gail Baptiste was audibly relieved to be together with the Makokas again.

“ We are so grateful for all the support in getting this done. There are some major players in this, but everybody had a part: everybody that sent messages, prayers, support. The kids, the adults, the staff, teachers, senators, congressmen, the mayor of Diamondhead.”

The Makoka brothers, who both came to the U.S. legally on F-1 student visas, fell out of status upon their transfer from the Piney Woods Country Life School in Rankin County to Hancock High School nearly three hours South in Diamondhead.

On April 29, ICE spokesperson Lindsay Williams provided the Mississippi Free Press with the following statement attributed to DHS: “On April 21, 2026, ICE detained Israel Makoka, an adult, and Max Makoka, his teenage sibling from the Republic of Congo, because they violated their student visas by failing to attend classes at Piney Woods School.”

The statement confirmed the Mississippi Free Press’ initial reporting that the detention of the Makoka brothers stemmed from falling out of status by transferring from Piney Woods. “They were granted the opportunity to participate in a student exchange program,” it read. “However, they failed to attend that school. Because they violated their visas, they are subject to removal.”

It was the intervention of U.S. Sens. Cindy Hyde-Smith and Roger Wicker, both Mississippi Republicans, which led to the sudden release of Israel, 18, from the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Jena, Louisiana, and Max, 15, from an Office of Refugee Resettlement group home in Houston, Texas. Before Thursday, both of the Makoka brothers faced an uphill climb of hearings, motions and paperwork to return to their home on the Gulf Coast, to say nothing of the challenge of reinstating their academic status and avoiding deportation. Now, come what may, they face the future with the Mississippi Gulf Coast community that has come to love them.

Several Mississippi politicians responded to the story of the Makoka brothers, which the Mississippi Free Press first reported, privately and on social media, including U.S. Rep. Mike Ezell. Gail Baptiste highlighted the rapid response from Hyde-Smith’s office as crucial support in the family’s darkest moment, including connecting the Baptistes with pro bono legal counsel that continues to represent the Makoka brothers.

“They have been great,” Baptiste said. “They’ve been involved from the beginning. They got the ball rolling.”

Israel is now free of CLIPC, a much-maligned privately-run detention camp where detainees are housed in long barracks, packed nearly 100 to a room. Few detainees are the beneficiaries of the swift intervention that allows Israel and Max the comfort and dignity of fighting their deportation case from home. The average length of stay at CLIPC is roughly one month.

Momentum built with media attention and the outrage of the Gulf community, where Israel and Max have resided for almost a year. Students honored the brothers at a ceremony where a teacher was meant to grant Israel his graduation cap and gown on April 27, less than a week after the brothers’ arrests and the same day the Mississippi Free Press first reported on the situation. It grew on social media, where friends and acquaintances cried out on their behalf, advocating for their release. More than 3,100 people, mostly residents of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, signed a petition urging their release since an Alabama resident started it on April 27. Now, that momentum has returned Israel and Max to their guardians.

The decision to release the Makoka brothers does not reinstate their status or protect them from the threat of deportation. That challenge still lies ahead of them, something their immigration lawyer Amy Maldonado says they have every intention of pursuing.

“ We’re going to be filing applications with (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) to reinstate their F1 non-immigrant student status at other schools. They can’t go to Hancock,” Maldonado told the Mississippi Free Press in an April 29 interview. “But they were underage, they were not advised that they were gonna be violating status. This is completely inadvertent.”

And that detail is important. Max, 15, remains underage in the eyes of the federal government, which is why he was not taken to Jena with his brother. But Israel, too, was underage for virtually the entire period he fell out of status, with no warning reaching his guardians or the brothers themselves that their stay in the U.S. was at risk. He turned 18 only a matter of weeks before ICE descended upon Diamondhead to surveil and eventually detain him just over a month before he was set to graduate from Hancock High School.

At minimum, Maldonado said, the seizure of Max Makoka was entirely unjustifiable, even by ICE’s contemporary standards.

“Max has legal guardians in the United States. ICE took him into custody and then put him in a shelter for unaccompanied alien children,” she said. “The legal definition of an unaccompanied alien child is one without a parent or legal guardian in the U.S.”

In parting, Gail Baptiste said she hopes the experience will continue to open minds.

“I think this has awakened so many people. And we’re thankful that a situation like this has caused so much awareness that we need to care for one another. Don’t judge. Be there, be supportive. Everybody has a different situation.”

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This story was originally published by the Mississippi Free Press and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.