The Skillman Foundation

The Skillman Foundation stands with youth, educators, community members, policymakers, business and civic leaders. In this time of rampant removal of immigrants across the country, mostly without due process, we find ourselves most concerned with youth.

Children as young as three representing themselves in court. Families separated. Young people afraid to go to school and return to a home with their families disappeared.

Our hearts are breaking for Maykol Bogoya-Duarte who was taken during a routine traffic stop and is now sitting in prison in Louisiana as opposed to preparing to walk across a stage and receive his well earned high school diploma.

Boyoga-Duarte’s attorney filed a stay of removal with the courts in an effort to pause his deportation until he graduates this fall. At that point, he would “depart from the United States at his own expense and not the taxpayer’s expense,” according to his lawyer.

We issue a call for mercy, for human decency, and for common sense. This is a child. He had been planning to leave post graduation. Let Maykol graduate. Let due process prevail. And let the promise of youth trump the politics of power.