A Babson College freshman was detained at Boston’s Logan International Airport and deported to Honduras as she attempted to fly to Texas to surprise her family for Thanksgiving, her attorney told Newsweek.
Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, who moved to the United States from Honduras as a young child, had already cleared security when she was stopped at the gate before boarding, attorney Todd Pomerleau said.
“She was told to go talk to a customer service rep to clear it up, and when she did that, she was immediately detained, handcuffed, dragged away, put in a van, taken to the processing facility,” Pomerleau said.
Why the Case Is Drawing Attention
Thousands of migrants have been detained by the current administration after President Donald Trump vowed to carry out mass deportations upon his return to the Oval Office in January. Trump pledged to deport one million migrants without legal status within a year.
What We Know So Far
Officials did not explain the reason for Lopez Belloza’s detention at the time, and she was later transported to the Burlington ICE field office before ultimately being flown to Texas, according to her attorney.
Her family lost contact with her for nearly two days before receiving a call from her on Saturday after she arrived in Honduras, a country she had not lived in since childhood, her attorney said. She then found her grandparents’ home and contacted her father shortly afterward, he added.
This trip would have been her first Thanksgiving break since starting college.
“She thought her case had resolved itself, and the reason she thought this is she’s a college student. She’s flown multiple times in the last year to visit different colleges, and she fell in love with Babson and wanted to go,” Pomerleau said.
Pomerleau described Lopez Belloza as a bright, driven business student who hopes to help her father expand his tailoring business. Her father had even made her several suits to wear for internships and future job interviews, the attorney said.
“She never got her day in court, and we’re not going to stop until she does because this is yet another egregious violation of the due process rights of noncitizens. And it has to stop. It can’t go on like this,” Pomerleau said.
Lopez Belloza’s parents and her young siblings also live in Texas, according to the attorney.
“She’s such a remarkable young woman, so articulate,” Pomerleau said.
“It’s just really disgusting what they’ve done to her. She has two little sisters, two and five, U.S. citizens. Rather than having something to be thankful for, she was separated from her loved ones when they needed her most,” he added.
A policy director at the American Immigration Council said Lopez Belloza appeared to have a 2017 removal order that she and her family did not know existed, noting that such orders can be issued in a person’s absence and mailed to outdated addresses, according to The Boston Globe.
