Nearly three months after deporting a student from Babson College, a private university in Massachusetts, to Honduras, the United States government acknowledged in federal court that it made a mistake, as there was a court order preventing her immediate expulsion from the country.

The student in question is Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, a 19-year-old university student from Massachusetts, who was detained on November 20 at Boston airport as she was about to travel to Texas to spend Thanksgiving with her family.

Lopez Belloza was sent to Honduras two days after being detained, despite a judge ordering that the student remain in the country for at least 72 hours.

Government admits error and offers apology

During the hearing in Boston federal court, government representatives admitted that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent failed to activate the necessary internal protocols to halt the deportation, resulting in a violation of the court order issued on November 21.

Assistant Attorney Mark Sauter offered a formal apology, stating that the error was unintentional and not a deliberate action by the government.

“On behalf of the government, we want to sincerely apologize. This error was unintentional on the part of an individual, not an intentional act to violate a court order,” Sauter stated.

Defense denounces violation of rights

Lopez's lawyer Belloza, Todd Pomerleau, argued that the deportation constituted a violation of due process and requested that the student be allowed to return to the United States to continue her studies at Babson College. According to the defense, the government deprived the young woman of her rights by ignoring the court order, even though her deportation had been previously scheduled by immigration decisions from 2016 and 2017. Judge Richard Stearns described the action as a serious bureaucratic error.But he noted that there appeared to be no intention to defy the court order, leaving open the possibility that Lopez Belloza could explore legal avenues to regularize her immigration status and return to the country. Lopez Belloza, whose family emigrated from Honduras to the United States in 2014, is currently staying with her grandparents and studying remotely. Her case adds to other recent incidents in which people have been deported despite having court rulings that should have halted their removal, such as the cases of Kilmar Abrego Garcia and a Guatemalan man identified as OCG. During the hearing, government lawyers argued that the court might lack jurisdiction, since the legal action was filed several hours after the student was already en route to Texas. However, they admitted that the judge's order was violated due to a misunderstanding of its scope.

The Future of Any Lucia Lopez Belloza

Judge Stearns indicated that, although the error was serious, the young woman was the victim of an administrative failure and could apply for a student visa to return to the United States. The defense plans to work on reopening the underlying deportation order and on her possible return to the country to complete her university education.