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Any Lucía López Belloza had been separated from her mother and father and two little sisters since beginning her freshman year at a business college near Boston in August. A family friend gave her plane tickets so she could travel back to Austin and surprise them for Thanksgiving.

The 19-year-old university student was already at the boarding gate at Logan Airport when she was informed there was an “error” with her boarding pass; when she went to customer service, she was handcuffed and taken into custody by what she understood to be two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

“I thought: ‘I was travelling to surprise my parents for Thanksgiving, and now the surprise will be that I won’t be there,’” López said.

She was allowed a single call to her parents, who immediately reached out to a legal representative. A day later, a federal judge issued an emergency order prohibiting her deportation from the US for at least three days until her case could be examined.

But the following day, she was shackled at her wrists, feet and torso and expelled to her native Honduras, a country which she departed at the tender age of seven and of which she has scarcely any recollection.

The Dangerous Country López Was Deported Back To

A nation home to about 11 million people, Honduras is a primary trafficking routes for narcotics transported from South America to its northern neighbor, and has spent many years struggling against the expanding power of armed gangs that dominate entire neighbourhoods, terrorize families and enlist young people. The nation's murder rate is three times the world average.

Honduras is also in a political maelstrom, with a knife-edge national vote of which the vote count has been delayed for days, with local politicians and experts condemning efforts by the US president, Donald Trump, to influence the electoral process.

“I never thought I would experience such an ordeal,” said López, who, since being deported on November 22nd, has been staying at her relatives' house in a major Honduran city, Honduras’s economic hub.

An ‘Unconstitutional Horror Show’ Says Legal Counsel

Her rapid expulsion – under 48 hours after she was detained at the airport – has drawn global attention as one of the starkest examples of reported violations under Trump’s mass deportation policy.

“Her case is an unconstitutional horror show,” said her lawyer, the Massachusetts Todd Pomerleau, who has represented other notable ICE detainees.

“She wasn’t told why she was arrested,” added Pomerleau. “They restrained her like she was a dangerous felon, and then deported to Honduras with no chance to have a legal hearing or even talk to an lawyer,” he added.

“If that isn’t unconstitutional, I don’t know what is,” Pomerleau concluded.

Government Response and Juridical Disputes

Trump administration officials repeatedly said the chief focus of enforcement actions was individuals with serious records, but – like most immigrants detained by immigration officers – López had no criminal record. Being undocumented in the US is not a crime but a civil infraction.

A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) representative said López, “an undocumented individual”, was taken into custody because she “arrived in the country in 2014 and an immigration judge ordered her removed from the country in 2015, over 10 years ago. She has illegally stayed in the country since.”

Her lawyer said that neither she nor he was ever presented with the removal order, and that even if it does exist, a U.S. statute stipulates that arrests in such cases can only take place within a 90-day window after the order is finalized – “not a decade after the fact,” said Pomerleau.

“Her mother came to the US because of how terrible the circumstances were in Honduras, where criminal groups were killing and extorting people … They came here just like the Pilgrims 400 years ago, for a brighter future and to escape persecution,” said the attorney.

Conditions in San Pedro Sula

Honduras “has a large out-migration issue”, said a social science researcher, a Soros justice fellow who researches returned migrants in Central America. In the past decade, about a fifth of Hondurans have left the country, most traveling to the US.

In that year, when López’s family fled Honduras, their city, San Pedro Sula, was considered the murder capital of the globe and their neighbourhood, La Pradera, was one of the most violent.

“Young people and households that I’ve interviewed from there reported a overwhelming control of gangs who forced many residents to leave,” said the researcher.

Gang violence has a devastating impact on women, having been the primary cause of femicides in Honduras last year. Young women are especially vulnerable, making up the majority of female victims of assault.

“And now you have a teenager back in a country where it’s very dangerous to be a female, who was given no legal recourse in the US,” she stated.

Pursuing for Justice and Hope

Pomerleau said they are now waiting for an official explanation from the American authorities to the judge as to why the emergency 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 forceful argument that the judicial ruling was disobeyed and seek a solution,” he explained.

“We will not cease until we get her back”.

López said she was attempting to keep her mind occupied: “I am trying to be as optimistic and as resilient as I can.

“I want to be able to move forward and perhaps continue my studies, whether here or by completing my semester at the university. And eventually, to be able to reunite with my family and my loved ones again,” she expressed.

Babson College, the school she was enrolled at in Massachusetts, issued a statement addressing her situation and saying that “our focus remains on assisting the individual and their family”.

“My primary objective in the US was always to study,” stated she. “This event to me isn’t fair, because we went there to study and work hard, to advance in pursuit of that promise of opportunity so many of us dream of.”