A college student heading home for the holidays was instead picked up by immigration authorities and deported to Honduras despite a court order specifying she couldn't be sent there, her attorney said.
Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, a 19-year-old freshman at Babson College, made it through security at Boston Logan International Airport on Nov. 20 when she was informed of an issue with her boarding pass, her attorney, Todd Pomerleau, said, according to The Associated Press. She was detained by immigration authorities and subsequently shipped to Texas, before being sent to Honduras, a country she left at just 7 years old.
“She’s absolutely heartbroken,” Pomerleau told the outlet. “Her college dream has just been shattered.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said a judge ordered her to be deported 10 years ago, though the student said she never knew of such an order.
Additionally, a judge banned the government from taking her out of Massachusetts for at least three days after her arrest, according to the report.
Lopez Belloza is now staying with her grandparents in Honduras.
“That was my dream,” she told The Boston Globe. “I’m losing everything.”
The case highlights the complex and often challenging landscape of immigration enforcement in the United States, where young immigrants can face sudden and unexpected deportation despite having established lives in the country.
ICE under President Donald Trump has implemented strict deportation policies. More than 200 judges in hundreds of cases have rejected the Trump administration’s attempts to lock up immigrants facing possible deportation — and they're getting sick of hearing challenges to those illegal efforts.