by Glenn Stout
Lora wanted the boys to have a chance to pursue their hoop dreams, a tricky proposition to be sure. Franck had exhausted his high school eligibility; there was no way he could play at Lake Wales, or even attend classes. He had already graduated.
“He was devastated,” Lora says. “He asked me if he could just go to classes anyway because he liked school so much.” To stay in the States, he had to find a college willing to take him.
Mahmadou was an even tougher case. He had no sports eligibility left at Lake Wales. He needed a prep school where he could work on his game and his English. Stefan and Rostand each had a year of high school eligibility remaining, but they needed to prove that to skeptical state high school athletic administrators.
Lora refused to hear the word no. The boys needed an AAU team to play on. She started one herself. It didn’t go well, really, but the exposure helped, and the coach at State College of Florida in Bradenton gave Franck a scholarship. One down.
Mahmadou played for an AAU team in the Tampa area, and a prep school in Clearwater agreed to take him. Two down.
Rostand and Stefan required a bureaucratic battle with the Florida High School Athletic Association, but they had Lake Wales High on their side.
Dunson and the administration engaged another Lake Wales High supporter, a prominent lawyer named Robin Gibson, who also serves as the general counsel for the high school, to help build a case for both boys to stay in school and for their right to play.
“We’ve never seen anything like this,” Gibson says. “Here they are, way on the other side of the world almost, from home. They’re 17, 18 years old. They have no family, and they are wanting to play basketball in the hopes they can get an education in the United States. Now how can you fault that?”
After some back-and-forth with the FHSAA and letters from Homeland Security detailing their situation, Stefan and Rostand were declared eligible to play sports during the 2015–16 academic year. Lora was 4-for-4.
Ever since, the tall boys have grown. Rostand learned how to swim on a boat trip out on a lake. They’ve learned how to hunt and fish, American style. “They’re becoming redneckified,” jokes Lora. After coping with lean times, they’ve learned to enjoy the plenty that America offers too. They go to the beach. They play on the farm. They laugh a lot.
When he first got to Georgia, Rostand says, “I was shocked about the conditions we were living in, but I had always had that faith that things were going to be better.”
The Donleys had faith as well. “I don’t know what that’s saying about us—it could be twisted the wrong way, like we didn’t think it through,” David says. “But we never hesitated. And everyone just got along so well, we just rolled. Plus we’re obviously faithful people, so we knew there had to be a reason. There has to be.”
The transition into the 2015–16 school year went smoothly, all things considered. Stefan, the most talkative of the four, thrived. He started on the basketball team, made the National Honor Society, made friends, and got his driver’s license, helping immensely with the family’s various commutes.
Rostand began to realize America has a lot of good point guards but not so many gifted soccer midfielders. To help ease the congestion at the Donley house, he moved into the home of Lake Wales High teacher and soccer mom June Ullman at the beginning of the school year. He also reacquainted himself with the beautiful game, starring for Lake Wales High and drawing recruiting interest from D-I and D-II schools, including North Carolina–Charlotte and Queens University in Charlotte.
He lost a love in basketball but gained a potential meal ticket.
Mahmadou was another matter. Of the four boys, he had the most problems adjusting. He was so tall, for one, and not an accomplished or confident athlete. And his English was by far the worst of the four. His stay at the Clearwater Academy, a Church of Scientology school in Clearwater, Florida, was short-lived.
The school did not have a basketball team and the courses were rudimentary, says Lora, and after a few months, Mahmadou came back to Lake Wales. Basketball was going nowhere, again. But at least he was back with his friends, safe, in school and home.
For how long, nobody knew. They were here now as government witnesses. As Lora says: They weren’t legal. They weren’t illegal. They would be allowed to stay in the U.S. at the discretion of federal investigators.
So far, no state or federal charges have been brought against Faith Baptist or anyone affiliated with the Stockbridge or Ludowici schools. Matthew Sellars says SEVP does little to help campuses comply with federal immigration laws but admits that his school was in the wrong by issuing I-20s to Flint’s athletes at a non-SEVIS-approved school.
“We really don’t have a defense,” Sellars says, “because ignorance is not innocence.”
He insists it’s unfair to say the Ludowici campus was involved in trafficking or any kind of document fraud. He points out that the school remains certified by SEVP to issue I-20s and that he continues to bring in international students. “The way I look at it is if they didn’t want us bringing any more kids in here, we wouldn’t still have status.”
He says that when agents asked him why Faith Baptist issued visas to postgraduate players, who technically needed no courses to be eligible to play a sport and weren’t really students, “I just responded, ‘Well, you approved them . . . We printed the paper off your website. We sent it overseas, and they met with your agents, and your agents approved them.’ ”
Six months after Homeland Security agents spoke with George Flint at his home on March 31, 2015, about Faith Baptist, Flint had moved on. By August, he was trying to start a new school, Blue Ridge Christian Academy in northern Georgia. His basketball coach? Aris Hines. The school never materialized into more than a website.
The Department of Homeland Security will say little about Faith Baptist. A public affairs officer for ICE in central and northern Florida apologized to Bleacher Report for not being able to speak about the issue, “as it is an open investigation.”
But Lora Donley says agents told her that investigations out of the Tampa and Savannah Homeland offices were completed and the case would be centered out of Atlanta. “They have to do something,” Lora says. “Someone has to be accountable for this.”
In April of this year, the U.S. Attorney in Newark, New Jersey, announced 21 arrests of people who had allegedly brokered fraudulent I-20 forms for international students. Federal agents set up a fake school, the University of Northern New Jersey, to issue bogus I-20s that were snapped up by brokers eager to sell them to foreign nationals who wanted to get into the U.S. but often had no intention of actually studying here—what’s known as “pay to stay.”
Such schemes “not only damage our perception of legitimate student and foreign worker visa programs, they also pose a very real threat to national security,” U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said in a statement.
It is easy to see how I-20 abuse by prep schools could create security risks; many of the students who come to the U.S. for a chance to play basketball hail from strife-torn areas that have bred terrorist groups.
But the schools only recently have become a focus of federal government attention. A 2012 Government Accountability Office report scolded ICE for lack of oversight of schools issuing I-20s as part of the SEVP program.
The GAO report was shocking given that the entire U.S. immigration system was overhauled after Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, two of the 9/11 attackers, had attended U.S. flight schools on visitor visas, without proper student credentials. The potential doorway for terrorism seems to have gotten Homeland Security’s attention.
Whatever the reasons, trafficking of basketball players has lately attracted scrutiny. In 2015, Harper’s magazine published a wrenching account of African boys recruited to the U.S. by unscrupulous AAU coaches, then discarded and left homeless. But abuses of young international athletes, particularly from Africa, have been going on for years, says Ed Bona.
Born in what is now South Sudan, Bona
played basketball at Fordham in the early 1980s and was among the first Africans drafted by the NBA, one year ahead of Hakeem Olajuwon. He has since settled in the U.S. and helped manage the late NBA player Manute Bol’s international foundation.
During the past two decades, he has helped a handful of talented Sudanese kids find opportunities to play in the U.S.—including the Deng brothers, former UConn player Ajou, and current Miami Heat forward Luol Deng.
What he has seen at some prep schools disgusts him. He recalls being called to help a Sudanese player in the mid-2000s who was stuck in rat-infested housing with no food available on weekends.
“They may as well have stayed behind in a refugee camp,” Bona says. He blames corrupt flesh peddlers bringing over dozens of kids at a time in the hope that some will hit it big and kick back part of their paychecks to the handler.
That’s an illusion, Bona says. He has worked with perhaps 20 African players in 20 years, some with real talent. “Only one made it to the NBA,” he says, “and that was Luol.”
By the second day of the JUCO showcase in Norcross, the meds had kicked in, and Lora was keeping the entire Lake Wales community informed on Stefan’s and Mahmadou’s progress with feverish Facebook updates.
“One and Done! Dou finished with a dunk and bucket . . . Stefan settled with 18. Success!!”
Lora had been half expecting to run into George Flint at the tournament, and she and Stefan’s mother had talked about confronting the man they believed had exploited the boys. They never saw Flint, but on Sunday as they prepared to head home, they took an informal vote. Lora, Lola, and Mahmadou opted for a side trip on the way back to Lake Wales: a somber tour of Stockbridge and Conyers.
“37 mi to our first stop,” Lora posted on Facebook. “The home of the man who brought our boys to the States. The man who forever changed their lives. The moms in this vehicle want to see what our boys saw. We want to know where they walked, played and prayed.”
Forty-five minutes later, as they drove past Flint’s house in a relatively upscale neighborhood in Conyers, the passengers were mostly silent. “My stomach’s flippin,” Lora said. She had flicked on a video camera and began posting live on Facebook. Stefan streamed the video to his “Serbian crew.”
They moved on to the rough neighborhood in nearby Stockbridge and the shabby apartment buildings. “This was the Serb house,” said Stefan, pointing to a two-story brick structure in a nondescript cul-de-sac.
Mahmadou pointed toward a neighboring house, in front of which a pickup truck was parked. “That’s where we were stealing Wi-Fi,” he said softly, referring to a hotspot where the boys could communicate with their families. Thinking back to their time at the apartments, Mahmadou continued, “Twenty people in there . . . No food . . . Bad memory.”
They drove past the Starbucks where they took the call from Gordon Gibbons and pointed out the CiCi’s Pizza parlor. “Shout-out to my boys from CiCi’s,” Stefan said. “They gave us free pizza every night.”
By now, Lola was sobbing softly in the car. She was hearing and seeing the story of her son’s journey for the first time, as was Stefan’s father, who was watching the live feed back home in Belgrade.
Lora comforted Lola. “He’s better now,” she said.
They love America. And these days, what’s not to love? The Donleys take them to school, the playing fields and courts, the beach, the lake, and give them every opportunity to flourish. “It is easier than back home,” Mahmadou says, his voice as gentle as orange blossoms. “Here, the people have a lot of opportunity.”
Stefan could not be more patriotic about his homeland. He wears Serbian T-shirts, sports a flag in his room, and a Serbian rearview-mirror ornament. “I would do anything for my country,” he says. But in the States, “You can be whoever you want to be. The most important thing is you have a chance. There is something you can look forward to.”
It’s up to Lora to be outraged for them. “It’s not fair,” she says. “This should not happen to anyone else.”
Someone took their money, which their families had scrimped and saved, selling off jewelry, even their clothes, to obtain tickets to America. Worse, she says, people in this country “messed with their dreams and goals. That takes it to a completely different level—so much bigger than just the money. Such a violation.”
For nearly two years, often with only each other to rely on, the four boys have seen America’s all-too-corruptible sports system from multiple angles. Yet as Mahmadou plays with Ally, holding his hand above his head and challenging the spunky nine-year-old to jump up and slap a high-five, there is no bitterness to be found. None.
When Dunson asked Stefan in January to speak about his experience to an assembly at the high school, he stepped hesitantly onto the gym floor and began telling his story. “Your lives here are so good, and you don’t even realize it,” he told the students. “I’ve seen the real world, and it’s not pretty. Life here, during these days at Lake Wales High, they’re a blessing.”
Finally, in late April 2016, the government granted its blessing on the four boys, upgrading the “deferred-action” status they had been under for a year and approving “continued presence” for another year, meaning that as victims of trafficking they are considered refugees, allowed to remain in the country as long as they are valuable to the investigation.
Just last week, as Homeland’s investigation appeared to be winding down, the boys met with the special agent in charge from Atlanta for follow-up interviews. The agent had emailed Lora a couple of weeks before to schedule the meeting, thanking her “for everything you have done to push this case forward.” Mostly, the agent added, she would need to develop a rapport with the boys “since they will be witnesses for me up here.”
Once the Homeland investigation is complete, agents will present their case to the Atlanta office of the U.S. Attorney, which will then decide whether to accept the case for prosecution.
When the investigation concludes, regardless of where it leads, the four witnesses can apply for citizenship, a process Homeland agents told them could take up to three years. Meanwhile, the boys do not have student visas or green cards and were told by agents that leaving the country even to visit their parents could jeopardize their status.
On June 3, a warm, windy Florida night with lightning cracking in the distance, Rostand, Stefan, and Mahmadou graduated from Lake Wales High School alongside the Donleys’ two other sons. The sky darkened, but the rain held off.
“God let us have that moment, and it didn’t rain a single drop,” Stefan says. “The setting was beautiful. Everything was so great.”
Things had mostly fallen into place on the college front too. The trips to the showcases, the endless online college applications, the phone calls to schools—all were paying off. On the day after Mother’s Day, Lora loaded up the SUV again and headed for a signing ceremony at Polk State College, a JUCO in nearby Winter Haven whose coach offered Stefan a scholarship to play on the basketball team. There was a cake and platters of food, and a horde of supporters.
Donna Dunson, the Lake Wales principal, brought along just about the entire administration, along with Stefan’s teammates and 15 classmates. His AAU coach, Jack Tisdale, came, and, of course, Lora, David, Brandon, Chris, Mahmadou, and Rostand were there.
“It was as if he were signing at the University of Florida,” Lora would say.
Stefan made a little speech, and when his mother was handed the letter of intent to sign, she told the group that she was making room for two signatures—hers and Lora’s.
“Lola cried,” Lora says. “The principal cried.” Lora cried too.
Things were looking up for Mahmadou too. A coach at Oakland Community College near Detroit, Terrell Polk, had seen Mahmadou play at the JUCO showcase back in April and offered him a scholarship to that school. Rostand, perhaps the most athletically gifted of the boys, was seriously considering an offer to play soccer from Warner University in Lake Wales and planned a visit to Flag
ler College in St. Augustine for a workout.
They all want to stay. After seeing so much of the United States, bad and good, they want to see more.
“My dad always tell me, ‘Nothing’s easy in life; you have to go through some bad things to get what you want,’ ” Rostand says. “It’s really the best country in the world, but it’s just humans. It’s the best country, but it’s just humans who do bad things.”
ALEXIS OKEOWO
The Away Team
from the new yorker
Around eleven o’clock on the night of October 10, 2015, Samson Arefaine learned that he had been selected to play on the national soccer team of Eritrea, a sliver of a nation in the Horn of Africa. For two months, he had been in a training camp in the capital, Asmara, with 33 other men, vying for 10 open spots on the Red Sea Camels. Now the team was due to fly to Botswana in less than two hours, to play in a World Cup qualifying match. Arefaine needed to pack quickly, so he ran to his room, in a house that team officials had arranged for players to use during the camp. The house had no electricity, and he struggled to see in the dark, but he managed to throw some shirts, shorts, and sandals into a bag. On the way to the airport, he called his parents and told them the exciting news.
At 26, Arefaine is lean and wiry, with bright-copper skin, tight-cropped curls, and a narrow face with a faint beard. On the team, he was known for being outspoken and funny, a reliable source of jokes and stories, and also as sensitive and watchful. “He knows how to read faces,” one teammate said. Though he played on the defensive line, at right back, he was the fastest member of the team, and he often rushed forward to score unexpected goals. His teammates described him as one of Eritrea’s best players.
When Arefaine boarded the plane, he had never been outside the country. For Eritreans, this is not unusual: Eritrea is one of the few nations that require an exit visa. An isolated, secretive state of some four million people, it has been under emergency rule since 1998. The United Nations has accused its military and its government—including the President, a former rebel leader named Isaias Afewerki—of crimes against humanity toward their own people, including indefinite conscription, arbitrary arrests and torture, and mass surveillance. “There are no civil liberties, there is no freedom of speech, there is no freedom to organize,” Adane Ghebremeskel Tekie, an activist with the Eritrean Movement for Human Rights, said. “The regime can do anything it wants.” According to the UN, as many as 5,000 people flee the country every month, making it one of the world’s largest sources of refugees. Last year, 3,800 people drowned while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea; many of them were Eritreans.
