President Donald Trump's administration summarily shipped a college student out of the country over an order from years ago that she wasn't even aware of, not even giving her time to realize she needed a lawyer, a legal expert wrote on Tuesday.
The individual, a Babson College freshman, was detained at Boston's Logan International Airport while she was heading home. Within 48 hours, she had been deported to Honduras, a country she had not lived in since the age of six.
This action stunned Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council.
"This college student ended up deported without any further court hearing because when she was a child, unbeknownst to her, she was ordered deported," wrote Reichlin-Melnick, a frequent critic of the Trump administration's deportation policies, in a post on X. "She had no idea, so she didn’t even know to have a lawyer try to reopen the case before it became a crisis."
The Trump administration has increasingly been under a magnifying glass over its attempts to get immigrants removed from the country by any means necessary, often with little to nothing resembling due process.
One of the most high-profile cases has been that of Salvadoran immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was accused by the administration of gang activity with little evidence and summarily deported to the foreign CECOT megaprison, despite a federal judge's order preventing his deportation to that country.
After months of outcry and wrangling, the administration relented from its previous claims that he could not be repatriated and brought him back to the United States — then immediately charged him with new, shakily-sourced gang offenses and tried several times to ship him to various countries in Africa, in a process legal experts have criticized as a farce.