A college freshman deported while flying home for Thanksgiving is fighting to return. Here’s what we know about her case

CNN Any Lucia Lopez Belloza arrived at the airport in Boston excited to embark on a surprise trip home to spend Thanksgiving with her family in Texas The year old freshman at Babson College was nearing the end of her first semester studying business a major she hoped would help her father open his own tailor shop one day But instead of getting to hug her parents and two little sisters and tell them how college was going Lopez Belloza was arrested by federal immigration bureaucrats moments before getting on her flight on November She was recounted there was a trouble with her boarding pass and on her way to customer arrangement she was surrounded placed in handcuffs and dragged out of the airport her attorney Todd Pomerleau stated CNN In the roughly hours after Lopez Belloza was sent to Texas and then Honduras the country where she was born but had not seen since she was years old when her parents brought her to the United States to seek asylum Lopez Belloza was deported despite a federal judge s order prohibiting the cabinet from removing her from the US while a lawsuit over her arrest played out in court according to her attorney In an email to CNN the Department of Homeland Guard explained Lopez Belloza entered the country in an immigration judge ordered her removal in but she illegally stayed in the country since Pomerleau informed CNN Lopez Belloza was never shown a warrant a removal order or given any explanation for why she had been detained I still am not convinced that she ever had an order removal She wasn t shown any proof he announced Pomerleau stated the only records he s revealed in leadership databases indicate her incident was closed in The trainee s father Francis informed the Austin American-Statesman his family was denied asylum but they had been assured by the judge they did not have deportation orders The outlet identified him only by his first name due to his immigration status it explained After her arrest Lopez Belloza was taken to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement s regional headquarters in Burlington Massachusetts according to Pomerleau From the field office she was transferred to a military base in Massachusetts and then flown to Texas where she spent the night in a detention facility before being deported to Honduras the following afternoon She had chains around her ankles Handcuffs on her wrists Pomerleau reported CNN Put on a plane and deported to a country she hadn t been at in like years It s beyond the pale In response to CNN s questions about the attorney s claims DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin stated in a report Lopez Belloza received full due process and was removed to Honduras A college dream in limbo Lopez Belloza who spent most of of her life in Texas where her father is raising her two younger sisters ages and decided to enroll at Babson after visiting colleges across the country She had worked hard throughout high school and received a scholarship to evaluation in Massachusetts her lawyer declared She wished to evaluation business and help her dad create his own business one day a tailoring shop Pomerleau revealed He hand-made suits for her so she could wear them to interviews and go to internships things like that A spokesperson for Babson College directed CNN to a couple of statements sent by the school s leadership in which they shared that a aspirant was detained by immigration functionaries while traveling home for the Thanksgiving holiday and indicated the school won t be commenting further We understand that this news may feel unsettling particularly for our students faculty and staff who may already be navigating uncertainty the college commented in one of the statements Our ability to share specifics is limited by law but please know that our focus remains on supporting the apprentice and their family as well as the wellbeing of our neighborhood Speaking to The Boston Globe which first shared the story Lopez Belloza stated she had been eager to return home to Austin and share her college experiences with her family I have worked so hard to be able to be at Babson my first semester that was my dream she recounted the Globe from her grandparents home in San Pedro Sula Pomerleau commented the focus now is on returning Lopez Belloza to the US We re going to ask that the federal judge require the United States to bring her back to the United States because it is an egregious violation of her due process rights