Young Woman Recounts ‘Horror Show’ ICE Removal to Her Native Country at the Holiday

Any 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 Boston in August. A family friend gave her plane tickets so she could travel back to her family in Texas and give them a surprise for the holiday gathering.

The 19-year-old business student was standing at the departure gate at Boston airport when she was told there was an “problem” with her travel documents; when she reached customer service, she was handcuffed and arrested by what she believed to be two federal immigration agents.

“I thought: ‘I am going to see my parents for Thanksgiving, and now the surprise will be that I am not coming,’” the student said.

She was permitted a phone call to her parents, who contacted a legal representative. The next day, a federal judge granted an injunction prohibiting her deportation from the US for at least 72 hours until her case could be reviewed.

But the next morning, she was shackled at her wrists, feet and torso and expelled to her native Honduras, a nation which she left at the age of seven and of which she has virtually no recollection.

The Dangerous Land She Was Sent To

A nation home to about 11 million people, Honduras is one of the main trafficking routes for narcotics transported from the southern continent to its northern neighbor, and has spent many years grappling with the expanding power of armed gangs that control whole districts, extort families and recruit youths. The country’s homicide rate is triple the world average.

Honduras is also in a state of political turmoil, with a extremely close national vote of which the vote count has dragged on for several days, with officials and analysts condemning repeated attempts by the US president, Donald Trump, to influence the electoral process.

“I never thought I would experience this tragedy,” said the young woman, who, since being sent away on November 22nd, has been staying at her relatives' house in San Pedro Sula, Honduras’s second-largest city.

A ‘Blatant Violation’ According to Her Lawyer

Her rapid expulsion – less than 48 hours after she was arrested at the airport – has attracted international scrutiny as one of the clearest examples of alleged abuses under Trump’s large-scale removal policy.

“This situation is an unconstitutional horror show,” said her lawyer, the Boston-based Todd Pomerleau, who has defended other high-profile ICE detainees.

“She wasn’t told why she was arrested,” added Pomerleau. “They restrained her like she was a dangerous felon, and then sent to Honduras with no opportunity to have a legal hearing or even talk to an attorney,” he added.

“Should this not be considered unconstitutional, I don’t know what is,” he concluded.

Official Statement and Juridical Contradictions

Trump administration officials have stated the chief focus of arrests and deportations was individuals with serious records, but – like many others detained by ICE agents – López had no criminal record. Being undocumented in the US is a civil matter but a civil infraction.

A federal agency representative said López, “an undocumented individual”, was arrested because she “entered the country in 2014 and an court issued a removal order from the country in 2015, a decade ago. She has remained unlawfully in the country since.”

Her lawyer said that no one was ever presented with the removal order, and that even if it exists, a federal law specifies that arrests in such instances can only take place within a 90-day window after the order is finalized – “not 10 years later,” said the lawyer.

“Her mum came to the US because of how horrific the circumstances were in Honduras, where criminal groups were killing and extorting people … They arrived just like the early settlers 400 years ago, for a better life and to find safety,” said the attorney.

Life in San Pedro Sula

Honduras “faces a large out-migration problem”, said Elizabeth G Kennedy, a Soros justice fellow who researches returned migrants in the region. In the last ten years, about a fifth of Hondurans have left the country, the majority traveling to the US.

In 2014, when the student's family fled Honduras, their city, this urban center, was considered the most violent city of the globe 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 forced many residents to flee,” said Kennedy.

Organized crime takes a particularly heavy toll on women, having been the primary cause of femicides in Honduras recently. Young women are especially vulnerable, making up the largest share of victims of assault.

“Now you have a teenager back in a place where the risks are high to be a young woman, who was given no legal recourse in the US,” she added.

Pursuing for Justice and Future

Pomerleau said they are now awaiting an official explanation from the US government to the court as to why the emergency order barring her removal was not respected.

“There is a chance the government will say: ‘We apologize, we erred here, and we’re going to {bring her back|facilitate her return.’ That would be the sensible and just thing to do.

“But they might have a different approach, and that’s going to require me to make a forceful argument that the court order was disobeyed and seek a solution,” he said.

“We’re not stopping until we she is returned”.

López said she was trying to stay focused: “I try to be as positive and as strong as I can.

“My desire is to be able to progress and perhaps resume my education, whether in Honduras or by completing my semester at the university. And one day, to be able to reunite with my family and my loved ones again,” she expressed.

Babson College, the school she was attending in Wellesley, issued a statement addressing her situation and saying that “our focus remains on assisting the individual and their family”.

“My main goal in the US was always to study,” stated she. “This event to me isn’t fair, because we went there to learn and work hard, to move forward in pursuit of that American dream so many of us had.”