Most 14-year-olds would welcome the chance to take a leave from middle school, but for Jeff Sukkasem it’s been two long, miserable years.

After Jeff bounced from California to his parents’ native Thailand, his mother sent him to Montgomery County in 2007 to live with family friends. She was recently divorced, and out of a job, and believed that her son, a U.S. citizen, would thrive stateside.