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The Lucía López Belloza had been away from her parents and two younger sisters since beginning her first semester at a business college near Boston in August. An acquaintance provided her with airfare so she could travel back to Austin and surprise them for Thanksgiving.

The 19-year-old university student was standing at the boarding gate at Logan Airport when she was informed there was an “issue” with her travel documents; when she reached the service desk, she was handcuffed and arrested by what she understood to be two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

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

She was permitted a phone call to her parents, who immediately reached out to a lawyer. A day later, a federal judge granted an injunction prohibiting her removal 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 waist and expelled to her birth Central American nation, a nation which she left at the tender age of seven and of which she has scarcely any recollection.

A Volatile Country She Was Sent To

Home to about eleven million people, Honduras is a primary trafficking routes for drugs transported from South America to its northern neighbor, and has spent decades struggling against the expanding influence of violent cartels that dominate entire neighbourhoods, extort families and recruit youths. The nation's murder rate is three times the world average.

Honduras is also in a political maelstrom, with a extremely close national vote of which the vote count has dragged on for days, with officials and experts criticising repeated attempts by the American leader, Donald Trump, to influence Hondurans’ votes.

“It never occurred to me I would experience this tragedy,” stated the young woman, who, since being sent away on 22 November, has been residing at her grandparents’ home in San Pedro Sula, Honduras’s second-largest city.

An ‘Blatant Violation’ According to Her Lawyer

Her swift deportation – less than two days after she was detained at the airport – has drawn global attention as one of the clearest examples of reported violations under Trump’s large-scale removal initiative.

“Her case is an legally dubious horror show,” said her attorney, the Massachusetts Todd Pomerleau, who has defended other notable ICE detention cases.

“She wasn’t told why she was detained,” added Pomerleau. “She was shackled like she was a hardened criminal, and then sent to Honduras with no chance to have a legal hearing or even consult with an attorney,” he added.

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

Government Response and Juridical Contradictions

Trump administration officials have stated the chief focus of arrests and deportations was individuals with serious records, but – like many others apprehended by ICE agents – the student had no criminal record. Lacking legal status in the US is a civil matter but a civil infraction.

A federal agency spokesperson said the individual, “an illegal alien”, was arrested 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 attorney said that no one was ever presented with the removal order, and that even if it does exist, a federal law specifies that apprehensions in such cases can only take place within a 90-day window after the order is issued – “not a decade after the fact,” argued Pomerleau.

“Her mum brought her here because of how terrible the conditions were in Honduras, where criminal groups were killing and extorting people … They came here just like the early settlers 400 years ago, for a brighter future and to find safety,” said the lawyer.

Life in San Pedro Sula

Honduras “has a large emigration problem”, said Elizabeth G Kennedy, a academic who studies returned migrants in the region. In the last ten years, about a fifth of Hondurans left the country, most heading to the US.

In that year, when López’s family left Honduras, their city, this urban center, was considered the most violent city of the globe and their community, a specific district, was one of the most dangerous.

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

Organized crime has a devastating impact on females, having been the primary cause of femicides in Honduras recently. Young women are especially vulnerable, 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 female, who was given no legal recourse in the US,” she added.

Pursuing for Justice and Hope

The student's lawyer said they are now waiting for an official explanation from the US government to the judge as to why the emergency order stopping her deportation 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.

“Yet 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 seek a solution,” he explained.

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

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

“I want to be able to move forward and perhaps resume my education, whether in Honduras or by completing my term at the university. And one day, to be able to see my parents and my loved ones again,” she said.

Babson College, the school she was attending in Wellesley, issued a public comment regarding her case and saying that “the priority remains on assisting the student and their family”.

“My primary objective in the US was always to pursue an education,” said López. “This event to me is unjust, because we went there to study and strive, to advance in search of that American dream so many of us dream of.”