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The Lucía López Belloza had been separated from her mother and father and two younger sisters since beginning her first semester at Babson College near Boston in August. A generous individual gave her plane tickets so she could fly home to Austin and surprise them for the holiday gathering.

The 19-year-old business student was standing at the departure gate at Logan Airport when she was told there was an “problem” with her travel documents; when she went to the service desk, she was handcuffed and taken into custody by what she believed to be two federal immigration agents.

“I thought: ‘I am going to surprise my parents for Thanksgiving, and now the shock will be that I am not coming,’” the student said.

She was permitted a single call to her parents, who contacted a legal representative. The next day, a federal judge granted an emergency order barring her deportation from the US for at least three days until her court proceedings could be reviewed.

But the next morning, she was shackled at her hands, ankles and torso and deported to her native Honduras, a country which she departed at the tender age of seven and of which she has virtually no memory.

A Dangerous Land López Was Sent Back To

Home to about 11 million people, Honduras is a primary transit corridors for narcotics transported from South America to its northern neighbor, and has spent many years grappling with the expanding power of violent cartels that control entire neighbourhoods, extort families and recruit youths. The nation's murder rate is triple the global average.

Honduras is also in a state of political turmoil, with a extremely close national vote of which the ballot tally has been delayed for days, with local politicians and experts criticising repeated attempts by the US president, Donald Trump, to sway Hondurans’ votes.

“It never occurred to me I would go through this tragedy,” said López, who, since being sent away on November 22nd, has been residing at her relatives' house in a major Honduran city, Honduras’s economic hub.

An ‘Blatant Violation’ Says Her Lawyer

Her swift deportation – under two days after she was arrested at the airport – has drawn global attention as one of the starkest examples of alleged abuses under Trump’s mass deportation policy.

“Her case is an legally dubious horror show,” said her lawyer, the Massachusetts Todd Pomerleau, who has represented other high-profile ICE detention cases.

“She wasn’t told why she was arrested,” added Pomerleau. “She was shackled like she was a dangerous felon, and then sent to Honduras with no opportunity to have a legal hearing or even talk to an attorney,” he added.

“If that isn’t a breach of rights, I don’t know what is,” Pomerleau said.

Official Statement and Juridical Disputes

Trump administration officials have stated the primary target of enforcement actions was individuals with serious records, but – like many others detained by immigration officers – the student had a clean record. Lacking legal status in the US is a civil matter but a civil infraction.

A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) representative said the individual, “an undocumented individual”, was arrested because she “arrived in the country in 2014 and an court ordered her removed from the country in 2015, over 10 years ago. She has remained unlawfully in the country since.”

Her attorney said that neither she nor he was ever shown the removal order, and that even if it exists, 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 mum brought her here because of how horrific the circumstances were in Honduras, where gang members were killing and extorting people … They came here just like the Pilgrims 400 years ago, for a brighter future and to find safety,” explained the lawyer.

Life in the Honduran City

Honduras “faces a significant emigration issue”, said a social science researcher, a Soros justice fellow who researches deportees in the region. In the past decade, about a fifth of Hondurans left the country, the majority traveling to the US.

In that year, when the student's family left Honduras, their city, San Pedro Sula, was considered the most violent city of the globe and their neighbourhood, La Pradera, was one of the most dangerous.

“Young people and households that I’ve interviewed from there reported a overwhelming presence of criminal organizations who compelled many residents to flee,” said Kennedy.

Gang violence has a devastating impact on women, having been the main driver of gender-based killings in Honduras last year. Teenage girls are particularly affected, making up the majority of victims of sexual violence.

“Now you have a young woman back in a place where it’s very dangerous to be a young woman, who was given no due process rights in the US,” she added.

Pursuing for Justice and Hope

Pomerleau said they are now waiting for an formal response from the American authorities to the judge as to why the judge's order barring her removal was not respected.

“It’s possible the government will say: ‘Sorry, we erred here, and we’re going to {bring her back|facilitate her return.’ That would be the sensible and just thing to do.

“But they might have a alternative stance, and that’s going to require me to make a forceful argument that the court order was disobeyed and demand a remedy,” he explained.

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

The student said she was attempting to keep her mind occupied: “I try to be as positive and as strong as I can.

“My desire is to be able to move forward and perhaps continue my studies, whether here or by completing my term at the college. And eventually, to be able to reunite with my parents and my family again,” she said.

Her university, the institution she was enrolled at in Massachusetts, issued a public comment regarding her situation and saying that “the priority remains on assisting the student and their relatives”.

“My primary objective in the US was always to study,” stated López. “What happened to me isn’t fair, because we came to learn and strive, to advance in pursuit of that promise of opportunity so many of us dream of.”