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The Lucía López Belloza had been away from her parents and two little sisters since beginning her first semester at a business college near the city of Boston in the late summer. A generous individual gave her airfare so she could fly home to her family in Texas and give them a surprise for Thanksgiving.

The teenage business student was already at the boarding gate at Logan Airport when she was informed there was an “issue” with her boarding pass; when she reached the service desk, she was restrained and arrested by what she believed to be two federal immigration agents.

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

She was allowed a phone call to her parents, who immediately reached out to a lawyer. A day later, a U.S. judge issued an emergency order barring her deportation from the US for at least 72 hours until her case could be reviewed.

However the following day, she was shackled at her wrists, feet and waist and deported to her birth Central American nation, a country which she departed at the age of seven and of which she has virtually no recollection.

A Volatile Land She Was Deported Back To

Home to about eleven million people, Honduras is a primary trafficking routes for drugs moved from South America to its northern neighbor, and has spent decades struggling against the growing power of armed gangs that control whole districts, terrorize families and enlist young people. The nation's homicide rate is triple the world average.

Honduras is also in a political maelstrom, with a extremely close presidential election of which the ballot tally has been delayed for days, with local politicians and analysts criticising repeated attempts by the US president, Donald Trump, to sway the electoral process.

“I never thought I would go through such an ordeal,” stated the young woman, who, since being deported on November 22nd, has been residing at her grandparents’ home in a major Honduran city, Honduras’s economic hub.

A ‘Blatant Violation’ Says Legal Counsel

Her rapid deportation – less than two days after she was detained at the airport – has drawn international scrutiny as one of the clearest cases of alleged abuses under Trump’s large-scale removal policy.

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

“She received no explanation why she was arrested,” said Pomerleau. “They restrained her like she was some type of hardened criminal, and then sent to Honduras with no opportunity to have a court hearing or even consult with an attorney,” he continued.

“If that isn’t a breach of rights, it is hard to imagine what would be,” Pomerleau concluded.

Official Response and Legal Disputes

Federal officials have stated the primary target of arrests and deportations was dangerous criminals, but – like most immigrants detained by immigration officers – the student had a clean record. Lacking legal status in the US is a civil matter but a administrative violation.

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

Her lawyer said that no one was ever presented with the removal order, and that even if it does exist, a federal law stipulates that apprehensions in such instances can only take place within a three-month period after the order is finalized – “not a decade after the fact,” said the lawyer.

“Her mum brought her here because of how terrible the conditions were in Honduras, where gang members were murdering and threatening people … They came here just like the early settlers 400 years ago, for a brighter future and to find safety,” said the attorney.

Conditions in San Pedro Sula

Honduras “faces a large emigration problem”, said Elizabeth G Kennedy, a Soros justice fellow who studies deportees in Central America. In the past decade, about a fifth of Hondurans have left the country, most heading to the US.

In that year, when the student's family fled Honduras, their city, San Pedro Sula, was considered the murder capital of the globe and their community, a specific district, was one of the most dangerous.

“The children and families that I have spoken with from there reported a overwhelming presence of gangs who forced many residents to leave,” noted Kennedy.

Gang violence takes a particularly heavy toll on females, having been the primary cause of femicides in Honduras last year. Young women are particularly affected, making up the majority of female victims of assault.

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

Fighting for Justice and Future

The student's lawyer said they are now waiting for an official explanation from the American authorities to the court as to why the emergency order stopping her removal was not respected.

“There is a chance the administration will say: ‘Sorry, we erred here, and we’re going to {bring her back|facilitate her return.’ That would be the easy and reasonable thing to do.

“But they might have a different approach, and that’s going to require me to make a forceful argument that the judicial ruling was violated and seek a solution,” he said.

“We will not cease until we she is returned”.

López said she was trying to keep her mind occupied: “I try to be as optimistic and as strong as I can.

“I want to be able to move forward and perhaps resume my education, whether here or by finishing my term at the university. And one day, to be able to reunite with my parents and my loved ones again,” she expressed.

Babson College, the institution she was attending in Massachusetts, issued a statement regarding her situation and saying that “the priority remains on assisting the individual and their family”.

“My primary objective in the US was always to pursue an education,” said she. “What happened to me is unjust, because we came to learn and work hard, to move forward in pursuit of that promise of opportunity so many of us dream of.”