Student Describes ‘Terrifying’ Immigration Deportation to Honduras at the Holiday

The Lucia López Belloza had been away from her mother and father and two younger sisters since starting her freshman year at a business college near the city of Boston in August. A generous individual provided her with plane tickets so she could travel back to her family in Texas and surprise them for Thanksgiving.

The 19-year-old business student was standing at the boarding gate at Boston airport when she was told there was an “issue” with her boarding pass; when she reached the service desk, she was handcuffed and taken into custody by what she believed to be two federal immigration agents.

“I thought: ‘I was travelling to see my parents for Thanksgiving, and now the shock will be that I won’t be there,’” López explained.

She was permitted a single call to her parents, who contacted a legal representative. The next day, a federal judge granted an emergency order prohibiting her deportation from the US for at least three days until her case could be reviewed.

But the following day, she was chained at her hands, feet and torso and expelled to her native Central American nation, a nation which she left at the age of seven and of which she has virtually no recollection.

A Dangerous Land She Was Sent To

A nation home to about 11 million people, Honduras is a key transit corridors for drugs transported from South America to Mexico, and has spent decades grappling with the growing power of violent cartels that dominate entire neighbourhoods, extort families and recruit young people. The nation's homicide rate is three times the global average.

Honduras is also in a state of political turmoil, with a knife-edge national vote of which the ballot tally has dragged on for days, with local politicians and experts criticising repeated attempts by the US president, Donald Trump, to sway Hondurans’ votes.

“It never occurred to me I would go through this tragedy,” stated the young woman, who, since being deported on November 22nd, has been residing at her grandparents’ home in a major Honduran city, Honduras’s second-largest city.

An ‘Unconstitutional Horror Show’ Says Her Lawyer

Her lightning-fast expulsion – less than 48 hours after she was arrested at the airport – has drawn global attention as one of the clearest examples of alleged abuses under Trump’s large-scale removal initiative.

“Her case is an legally dubious horror show,” said her attorney, the Massachusetts legal representative, who has defended other notable ICE detention cases.

“She received no explanation why she was detained,” added Pomerleau. “They restrained her like she was some type of dangerous felon, and then deported to Honduras with no opportunity to have a court hearing or even talk to an attorney,” he continued.

“Should this not be considered a breach of rights, I don’t know what is,” Pomerleau concluded.

Government Statement and Juridical Contradictions

Federal officials repeatedly said the primary target of arrests and deportations was dangerous criminals, but – like most immigrants detained by immigration officers – the student had a clean record. Lacking legal status in the US is a civil matter but a civil infraction.

A federal agency spokesperson said López, “an illegal alien”, was arrested because she “entered the country in 2014 and an immigration judge issued a removal order from the country in 2015, over 10 years ago. She has remained unlawfully in the country since.”

Her attorney said that neither she nor he was ever shown the removal order, and that even if it does exist, a U.S. statute stipulates that apprehensions in such cases can only take place within a 90-day window after the order is issued – “not a decade after the fact,” argued the lawyer.

“Her mother brought her here because of how terrible the circumstances were in Honduras, where gang members were murdering and threatening people … They came here just like the early settlers centuries ago, for a better life and to find safety,” said the attorney.

Life in San Pedro Sula

Honduras “faces a significant emigration problem”, said a social science researcher, a Soros justice fellow who studies deportees in the region. In the past decade, about a fifth of Hondurans have left the country, most traveling to the US.

In that year, when the student's family fled Honduras, their city, this urban center, was considered the most violent city of the world and their community, La Pradera, was one of the most dangerous.

“Young people and households that I’ve interviewed from there reported a very strong presence of criminal organizations who compelled multiple families to leave,” said the researcher.

Organized crime has a devastating impact on females, having been the main driver of gender-based killings in Honduras last year. Teenage girls are especially vulnerable, making up the majority of victims of sexual violence.

“And now you have a teenager back in a place where it’s very dangerous to be a young woman, who was given no legal recourse in the US,” she stated.

Fighting for Justice and Hope

The student's lawyer said they are now waiting for an official explanation from the American authorities to the court as to why the judge's order barring her removal was not respected.

“It’s possible the government will say: ‘We apologize, we erred here, and we’re going to {bring her back|facilitate her return.’ That would be the easy and reasonable thing to do.

“Yet they might have a alternative stance, and that’s going to require me to make a forceful argument that the judicial ruling was disobeyed and demand a remedy,” he said.

“We will not cease until we get her back”.

The student said she was attempting to keep her mind occupied: “I try to be as optimistic and as strong as I can.

“I want to be able to move forward and perhaps resume my education, whether in Honduras or by finishing my term at the university. And one day, to be able to see my parents and my family again,” she expressed.

Babson College, the school she was enrolled at in Massachusetts, issued a public comment addressing her case and saying that “our focus remains on supporting the individual and their relatives”.

“My main goal in the US was always to study,” stated López. “What happened to me isn’t fair, because we came to learn and work hard, to advance in pursuit of that American dream so many of us dream of.”