The Trump administration apologized in federal court for what it called a “mistake” that led to the deportation of a Massachusetts college student who was detained while trying to fly home to surprise her family in Texas for Thanksgiving. Even so, government lawyers argued the error should not change the outcome of her immigration case.
Any Lucía López Belloza, 19, a freshman at Babson v in Wellesley—about 15 miles west of Boston—was detained at the city’s airport on 20 November and flown to Honduras two days later. Her removal happened despite an emergency court order issued on 21 November directing the government to keep her in Massachusetts or elsewhere in the United States for at least 72 hours to allow legal processes to proceed.
López Belloza, whose family emigrated from Honduras to the United States in 2014 when she was seven, is currently staying with her grandparents and continuing her studies remotely. She is not detained and recently visited an aunt in El Salvador. In early December, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers reportedly went to her parents’ home in Austin, Texas, and behaved aggressively toward the family, but left without taking further action.
At a federal court hearing Tuesday in Boston, government attorneys argued the court lacks jurisdiction because López Belloza’s lawyers filed their action several hours after she had been taken to Texas while being removed from the U.S. in November. At the same time, the administration acknowledged it violated the judge’s order.
In court filings and in open court, government lawyers said an ICE deportation officer mistakenly believed the order no longer applied and failed to activate a system that alerts other ICE officers when a case is under judicial review and removal must be paused.
“On behalf of the government, we want to sincerely apologize,” assistant U.S. attorney Mark Sauter told the judge, saying the employee understood “he made a mistake”. Sauter added that the violation was “an inadvertent mistake by one individual, not a willful act of violating a court order”.
In a declaration filed on 2 January, the ICE officer also said he did not notify ICE’s enforcement office in Port Isabel, Texas, that the removal mission needed to be canceled. He stated he believed the order no longer applied once López Belloza was no longer in Massachusetts.
The government argued, however, that the deportation itself was lawful because an immigration judge ordered the removal of López Belloza and her mother in 2016, and the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed their appeal in 2017. Prosecutors said she could have pursued additional appeals or sought a stay of removal.
Her attorney, Todd Pomerleau, said she was deported in clear violation of the 21 November order and argued the government’s actions denied her due process. “I was hoping the government would show some leniency and bring her back,” he said. “They violated a court order.”
On Friday, Pomerleau filed papers asking the judge to order the government to produce a plan to return López Belloza to the United States.
López Belloza described the flight to Honduras as a moment when shock gave way to fear, and she began to believe the life she had been building—living in a college dorm in a comfortable Massachusetts suburb, working toward a business degree, and planning to open a tailoring shop with her father—might be over.
“I guess this is where my dreams are gone,” she recalled thinking in a telephone interview with the Associated Press on Friday. “Because in Honduras, if you want to dream big, it’s like you have to have a lot of money. You have to be rich. But in the United States, dreams are possible. You can make them happen.”
U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns said he appreciated the government’s acknowledgment of the error, calling it a “tragic” bureaucratic mistake. However, he appeared to rule out holding the government in contempt, noting the violation did not seem intentional. He also questioned whether he had jurisdiction over the case.
“It might not be anybody’s fault, but she was the victim of it,” Stearns said, and at one point suggested López Belloza could explore applying for a student visa.
López Belloza told the AP she still has hope and said she was “so appreciative of the apology that the government made”.
But she said the mistake has upended her life.
“Those hours I was detained, it was so horrible,” she said. “Knowing that it was a mistake, it does hurt me.”
