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The Lucia López Belloza had been away from her parents and two younger sisters since beginning her first semester at Babson College near Boston in August. A family friend provided her with airfare so she could fly home to her family in Texas and give them a surprise for the holiday gathering.

The teenage business student was already at the departure gate at Boston airport when she was told there was an “issue” with her boarding pass; when she reached customer service, she was handcuffed and taken into custody by what she believed to be two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

“My thought was: ‘I am going to see my parents for Thanksgiving, and now the surprise will be that I won’t be there,’” López stated.

She was allowed a single call to her parents, who immediately reached out to a lawyer. The next day, a U.S. judge issued an injunction prohibiting her removal from the US for at least three days until her court proceedings could be reviewed.

But the following day, she was shackled at her hands, feet and torso and deported to her birth Central American nation, a nation which she departed at the tender age of seven and of which she has scarcely any memory.

A Dangerous Land López Was Deported To

A nation home to about eleven million people, Honduras is a key trafficking routes for drugs moved from South America to Mexico, and has spent decades grappling with the growing power of violent cartels that control whole districts, terrorize families and recruit youths. The nation's homicide rate is three times the global average.

Honduras is also in a state of political turmoil, with a extremely close presidential election of which the vote count has dragged on for days, with local politicians and experts condemning efforts by the US president, Donald Trump, to sway Hondurans’ votes.

“I never thought I would experience this tragedy,” stated López, who, since being deported on 22 November, has been residing at her relatives' house in a major Honduran city, Honduras’s second-largest city.

An ‘Unconstitutional Horror Show’ According to Legal Counsel

Her rapid deportation – under 48 hours after she was arrested at the airport – has attracted global attention as one of the clearest cases of reported abuses under Trump’s large-scale removal initiative.

“This situation is an unconstitutional nightmare,” said her lawyer, the Boston-based legal representative, who has defended other high-profile ICE detainees.

“She wasn’t told why she was arrested,” said Pomerleau. “They restrained her like she was some type of hardened criminal, and then deported to Honduras with no chance to have a court hearing or even consult with an lawyer,” he added.

“If that isn’t unconstitutional, it is hard to imagine what would be,” he said.

Government Response and Legal Contradictions

Federal officials repeatedly said the chief focus of arrests and deportations was dangerous criminals, but – like many others detained by immigration officers – López had no criminal record. Being undocumented in the US is a civil matter but a administrative violation.

A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) representative said López, “an illegal alien”, was arrested because she “arrived in the country in 2014 and an court ordered her removed from the country in 2015, over 10 years ago. She has illegally stayed in the country since.”

Her attorney said that no one was ever presented with the deportation order, and that even if it exists, a federal law stipulates that apprehensions in such instances can only take place within a three-month period after the order is finalized – “not 10 years later,” argued Pomerleau.

“Her mum came to the US because of how horrific the circumstances were in Honduras, where criminal groups were killing and extorting people … They came here just like the Pilgrims centuries ago, for a better life and to escape persecution,” said the lawyer.

Conditions in the Honduran City

Honduras “faces a significant emigration problem”, said Elizabeth G Kennedy, a Soros justice fellow who researches deportees in the region. In the past decade, about a fifth of Hondurans have left the country, most heading to the US.

In 2014, when López’s family fled Honduras, their home town, this urban center, was considered the murder capital of the globe and their community, a specific district, was one of the most violent.

“Young people and households that I have spoken with from there reported a very strong control of criminal organizations who compelled many residents to leave,” noted Kennedy.

Organized crime has a devastating impact on females, having been the primary cause of gender-based killings in Honduras last year. Teenage girls are particularly affected, making up the majority of female victims of sexual violence.

“And now you have a teenager back in a place where the risks are high to be a young woman, who was given no due process rights in the US,” she stated.

Fighting for Justice and Future

Pomerleau said they are now awaiting an formal response from the US government to the judge as to why the judge's order barring her deportation was ignored.

“There is a chance the administration will say: ‘Sorry, we made a mistake 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 different approach, and that would necessitate me to make a strong legal case that the judicial ruling was disobeyed and demand a remedy,” he explained.

“We’re not stopping until we get her back”.

The student said she was attempting to stay focused: “I am trying to be as positive and as strong as I can.

“My desire is to be able to move forward and perhaps resume my education, whether in Honduras or by completing my term at the university. And eventually, to be able to reunite with my family and my family again,” she said.

Babson College, the institution she was enrolled at in Wellesley, issued a statement addressing her case and saying that “the priority remains on supporting the individual and their family”.

“My primary objective in the US was always to study,” said she. “What happened to me is unjust, because we came to learn and strive, to move forward in search of that promise of opportunity so many of us had.”