Student, 20, Who Was Mistakenly Deported to Honduras Refuses Flight Back to the US Over Fears of a Second ICE Interception

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Babson College student Any Lucia López Belloza, 20, was arrested in November by two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials at a Boston airport while she was traveling home to Texas for Thanksgiving.

She was deported to Honduras, the country she had immigrated from with her parents when she was just eight years old.

Assistant US Attorney Mark Sauter said the administration had made a ‘mistake’ when they ordered ICE officials to deport the Babson College freshman. ‘On behalf of the government, we want to sincerely apologize,’ Sauter said.

US District Judge Richard Stearns issued an order on November 21 barring Belloza from being deported or transferred out of the state for 72 hours.

But by that time, she had already been flown to Texas, potentially stripping Stearns’ court of jurisdiction. She landed in Honduras on November 22.

Sauter acknowledged the court’s order was violated, a development he blamed on a ‘mistake’ by an ICE officer who thought the order no longer applied and failed to properly flag it.

On February 13, Stearns ordered the Trump administration to fix its mistake by facilitating Belloza’s return to the US. On Thursday, the college student told reporters she was excited to learn that a flight had been arranged to take her home.

However, she later said ‘that excitement turned into a nightmare’ after discovering that in court filings, the Trump administration said it planned to deport her upon her return to the US.

Belloza said that an ICE officer had misled her prior to finding out that information by saying that if she boarded the plane, she would be released after landing in the US.

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In court filings on Friday, the Trump administration said that Belloza did not appear at a pre-arranged meeting and that she did not board the flight at an airport in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, that had been organized for her return to the US.

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Belloza’s arrest and deportation were based on a removal order that was issued when she was 11. Belloza said she was unaware that the removal order existed.

Although Sauter, the assistant US attorney, issued a rare apology for Belloza’s mistaken deportation, he also said there were no grounds to hold anyone in contempt.

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