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Maykol Bogoya-Duarte, the Detroit teen whose detention by federal immigration authorities last month caused an outcry and led to calls for his release, has been deported, his attorney said Friday morning.

Attorney Ruby Robinson said he learned late Thursday night from Maykol鈥檚 mother, in an 11:15 p.m. voicemail, that the teen was back in his home country of Colombia.

Robinson said he hadn鈥檛 yet spoken with Maykol, but hoped to do so later Friday. He said the teen is now with his grandmother in Colombia.

Chalkbeat reached out to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to confirm the deportation, but did not get a response. His information is no longer available on .

while he and a group of other newcomer boys attempted to join a field trip at Lake Erie Metropark, about 25 miles away from Detroit. Rockwood police stopped the teen for allegedly tailgating another car. Maykol did not have a driver鈥檚 license, only a City of Detroit identification card, Robinson has previously said.

His detention prompted advocacy from his teachers, fellow students, community members, and lawmakers who pleaded for Maykol to be allowed to remain in the country to finish high school. He was 3.5 credits shy of a high school diploma at Western International High School, where he was enrolled.

鈥淚鈥檓 devastated,鈥� said Kristen Schoettle, who taught Maykol at Western.

鈥淭he cruelty of this country really shakes me,鈥� Schoettle said. 鈥淭his kid, my bright student, was passed along to prisons for a month, scared and facing awful conditions I鈥檓 sure, for the crime of what 鈥� fleeing his country as a minor in search of a better life? And the US government decided his time was better spent in prison than finishing out the school year.鈥�

Schoettle said she hopes to hear from Maykol today.

鈥淚 hope he鈥檚 safe with his grandma. I hope he can recover from this traumatizing experience and still will dream of a better life. I鈥檒l miss him in my classroom next year and our city and our country are worse off without people like him,鈥� she said.

Schoettle shared examples of Maykol鈥檚 classroom work with Chalkbeat, including what he wrote when asked earlier this year to write about freedom.

鈥淚 think the freedom in this moment is a little confusing since we can鈥檛 leave safely since we don鈥檛 know what can happen and it seems strange to me since we have to be more careful than usual,鈥� he wrote in Spanish.

Thousands of people signed a petition earlier last week .

for more than 2陆 hours at the district鈥檚 school board meeting on June 10. Afterward, the board released a statement saying it wanted Maykol to be able to stay in the country to earn his diploma.

Maykol鈥檚 mother attended that school board meeting, though she didn鈥檛 speak. Robinson, senior managing attorney with the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, said the organization isn鈥檛 representing Maykol鈥檚 mother.

鈥淏ut I would suspect she will try to return to Colombia at her own expense based on what she learned with Maykol鈥檚 month-long, taxpayer-funded, and entirely unnecessary and harmful detention.鈥�

During the May 20 traffic stop that led to his detention, police officers could not communicate with him in Spanish and called Customs and Border Protection agents to translate.

Maykol, who came to the U.S. when he was 16, had already been going through a legal process to return to Colombia after receiving a final order of deportation in 2024. He was working with immigration officials and the Colombian Consulate to obtain the documentation he needed to fly out of the country with his mother.

While he made those arrangements, Maykol planned to finish high school in Detroit.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at .

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