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

By Hanna Park, CNN

(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 19‑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 officials moments before getting on her flight on November 20. She was told there was a problem with her boarding pass, and on her way to customer service she was “surrounded, (placed) in handcuffs, and dragged out of the airport,” her attorney, Todd Pomerleau, told CNN.

In the roughly 48 hours after, Lopez Belloza was sent to Texas and then Honduras, the country where she was born but had not seen since she was 7 years old, when her parents brought her to the US to seek asylum.

Lopez Belloza was deported despite a federal judge’s order prohibiting the government from removing her from the US while a lawsuit over her arrest played out in court, according to her attorney.

CNN reached out to the DHS and ICE regarding Lopez Belloza’s case.

The Department of Homeland Security said an immigration judge ordered Lopez Belloza’s removal in 2015, and that she “illegally stayed in the country since,” according to a statement obtained by CNN affiliate KEYE.

Pomerleau told 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 said.

Pomerleau said the only records he’s found in government databases indicate her case was closed in 2017.

The student’s father, Francis, told the Austin American-Statesman that his family was denied asylum, but that they had been assured by the judge that they did not have deportation orders. The outlet only identified him by his first name due to his immigration status, it said.

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 told CNN. “Put on a plane and deported to a country she hadn’t been at in like 12 years. It’s beyond the pale.”

A college dream in limbo

Lopez Belloza – who spent most of her life in Texas, where her father is raising her two younger sisters, ages 2 and 5 – decided to enroll at Babson after visiting colleges across the country.

She had worked hard throughout high school and received a scholarship to study in Massachusetts, her lawyer said.

“She wanted to study business and help her dad create his own business one day, a tailoring shop,” Pomerleau said. “He hand-made suits for her so she could wear them to interviews and go to … internships, things like that.”

Speaking to The Boston Globe, who first reported the story, Lopez Belloza said 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 told the Globe from her grandparents’ home in San Pedro Sula.

CNN has reached out to Babson College for comment.

Pomerleau said 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.”

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