ICE targets young Van Buren refugees, one youth deported

Editor’s note: This story has been edited from the printed version to reflect a more accurate portrayal of the brother’s flight from persecution.

the In the Aug. 27 issue of The Belleville Area Independent, we ran a letter to the editor from Van Buren resident Michael Callahan, a retired circuit court judge. Callahan and his wife Susan have been fostering young men who are refugees from violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo and recently had a run-in with Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE).

Callahan wrote: “On Sunday, August 2, 2026, my wife and I learned from a dispatcher at Van Buren Police Department that our public officers will not respond to a citizen’s call if I.C.E. officers conduct an operation in the township.

‘We are foster parents for unaccompanied young teens who had come from the Congo where they were tortured. The now young men, one of whom has become a U.S. citizen, and one who is on his way to citizenship have lived with us for seven years, have graduated high school, one from college, work full time, pay taxes, obey our laws and have complied with every requirement of the foster care system and with U.S. immigration.”

Callahan says that security cameras on their house and neighbors’ houses showed ICE vehicles surveilling the Callahan home beginning at 6 a.m.

Two of the boys were confronted by ICE that morning when they left the house in separate vehicles go to church.

The boys called their foster parents to tell them they were surrounded by ICE vehicles.

“Returning home, we … went inside and told our older son to get his immigration papers so he could be ready in the event I.C.E. returned. Unlike the rest of his family, he does not have asylum, but he has protected status referred to as a withholding of removal,” Callahan’s letter continued.

“He was released by immigration and has lived as a working, tax-paying resident in the U.S. for seven years. He is a member of the teamsters, a church-goer, and importantly, a poster child for compliance with immigration. He has never had any run-ins with the law.”

ICE agents speaking to Susan Callahan claimed they were there to fit their foster son with an ankle tether until his next check-in with I.C.E.

She questioned why they needed eight, armed officers, dressed in tactical gear with magazines, pepper spray, heavy duty body armor and no body cameras to put an ankle monitor on a fully compliant refugee. She also asked to see a warrant. They had none.

Judge Callahan went outside at that time, and Susan Callahan called Van Buren Police.

The dispatcher placed her on hold to speak with a supervisor and returned to inform her that Van Buren PD would not respond to any presence of I.C.E.

Their son voluntarily complied with the ICE officers and rolled up his leg for an ankle monitor, but instead he was handcuffed and taken away.

The Independent followed up with the Callahan family to find out more, and found out they lost touch with the deported foster son. His withholding of removal status meant that he could not be deported back to the country where his family had been persecuted and tortured and where his parents were presumably killed. However, they later learned that he had been deported to the country of Cameroon.

The boys have half-sisters living in France, and they were able to use family and friend connections to find the oldest brother who was deported and get him food and a phone so he could get in touch with the Callahans.

Another of the Callahan family’s foster sons, Elie, is now 24, employed, married, and recently adopted a child with his wife. He’s also a proud U.S. citizen as of May. His younger brother, who managed to avoid being taken away by ICE, has a green card and is in the process of becoming a citizen as well.

Elie told The Independent that he had always felt much safer in the U.S. than in the Democratic Republic of Congo, that is until the run-in with ICE.

He and his brothers were on the run starting when Elie was 16 because their father, who was a critic of the DRC government, was targeted for torture. The boys watched the military inflict violence on their entire family.

“The military raped the older sisters and the mom, and beat the dad,” Susan Callahan said. “Their dad sent the older sisters who had travel papers to France, and then moved the seven younger ones to Angola, and they were there for about nine months, and then they were attacked again by a combination of the DRC and Angolan military, and the whole settlement was burned.”

After Angola, the brothers traveled to Brazil, and later made their way to the U.S. where they were stopped by ICE. The youngest two were still minors and that is how they ended up with the Callahans.

Before marrying Judge Callahan, Susan had three biological children and adopted several children from the U.S. Later, together, the couple started fostering unaccompanied minors when family separation of children from parents became policy during the first Trump administration.

Elie says he hopes that publicizing his family’s case might change some hearts and minds about ICE action in Michigan.

“These things are really happening. We have heard people saying like oh it happened to us, but having it happening to us, live, it was traumatizing having to go through that,” Elie said. “My brother works, and he pays his taxes. He’s never got in trouble with the law.”

Elie says the encounter with ICE has shaken him.

“It has changed my view a lot, especially when it comes to the law, because I feel like from the beginning, coming here, I’ve felt safer until that day. The way they stopped me and my younger brother, it felt like we were criminals,” Elie said. “I feel like lucky because now I feel like oh I’m American, but at the same time, like really, if they can just pick people up and take them, then what guarantee do I have that I can safely be able to live life here without being dragged away or stopped?”

Susan Callahan says the only bright spot is the “global community of people who are willing to help,” including those who helped Michael and Susan Callahan reconnect with their son who was deported.

She says she hopes the oldest son will reconnect with another brother who is still in Angola, living with friends of the family.

“I have a hope that he will get travel papers, go find Benny, and start a life with Benny,” she said. “He’s pretty resourceful.”

Editor’s note: We reached out to the Van Buren Township Police Department for comment on their policy but didn’t receive a response by press deadline.