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Any Lucia López Belloza had not seen her mother and father and two younger sisters since starting 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 surprise them for the holiday gathering.

The 19-year-old business student was standing at the boarding gate at Boston airport when she was informed there was an “problem” with her boarding pass; when she reached the service desk, she was handcuffed and arrested by what she understood to be two federal immigration agents.

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

She was permitted a phone call to her parents, who contacted a lawyer. A day later, a federal judge granted an emergency order barring her removal from the US for at least 72 hours until her court proceedings could be reviewed.

However the following day, she was shackled at her hands, ankles and torso and forcibly removed to her native Central American nation, a country which she left at the age of seven and of which she has virtually no recollection.

A Volatile Land She Was Sent Back To

A nation home to about 11 million people, Honduras is a key transit corridors for narcotics moved from the southern continent to its northern neighbor, and has spent decades struggling against the growing power of armed gangs that dominate whole districts, extort families and recruit youths. The nation's murder rate is three times the global average.

Honduras is also in a state of political turmoil, with a extremely close presidential election of which the ballot tally has been delayed for days, with officials and analysts condemning repeated attempts by the American leader, Donald Trump, to influence the electoral process.

“It never occurred to me I would go through such an ordeal,” said López, who, since being deported on November 22nd, has been staying at her relatives' house in San Pedro Sula, Honduras’s second-largest city.

A ‘Unconstitutional Horror Show’ According to Legal Counsel

Her swift expulsion – less than two days after she was arrested at the airport – has drawn global attention as one of the clearest examples of reported violations 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 received no explanation why she was arrested,” added Pomerleau. “They restrained her like she was a dangerous felon, and then deported to Honduras with no opportunity to have a legal hearing or even consult with an attorney,” he continued.

“Should this not be considered unconstitutional, I don’t know what is,” he concluded.

Government Statement and Legal Disputes

Federal officials repeatedly said the chief focus of arrests and deportations was individuals with serious records, but – like most immigrants apprehended by ICE agents – López had a clean record. Lacking legal status in the US is not a crime but a administrative violation.

A federal agency spokesperson said López, “an illegal alien”, was arrested because she “arrived in the country in 2014 and an court issued a removal order from the country in 2015, a decade ago. She has remained unlawfully in the country since.”

Her lawyer said that no one was ever shown the removal order, and that even if it does exist, a federal law specifies 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 came to the US because of how terrible the circumstances were in Honduras, where criminal groups were murdering and threatening people … They came here just like the Pilgrims 400 years ago, for a brighter future and to escape persecution,” explained the attorney.

Life in the Honduran City

Honduras “faces a significant out-migration issue”, said a social science researcher, a academic who researches deportees in the region. In the last ten years, about a fifth of Hondurans have left the country, the majority 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 neighbourhood, La Pradera, was one of the most dangerous.

“The children and families that I’ve interviewed from there described a very strong control of gangs who forced many residents to flee,” noted Kennedy.

Organized crime has a devastating impact on women, having been the primary cause of gender-based killings in Honduras last year. Teenage girls are particularly affected, making up the largest share of victims of sexual violence.

“And now you have a young woman back in a country 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 awaiting an official explanation from the US government to the court as to why the emergency order barring her removal was ignored.

“There is a chance the administration will say: ‘We apologize, we made a mistake 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 alternative stance, and that would necessitate me to make a strong legal case that the court order was disobeyed and demand a remedy,” he said.

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

The student said she was trying to keep her mind occupied: “I try to be as optimistic and as resilient as I can.

“My desire is to be able to progress and maybe continue my studies, whether in Honduras or by completing my term at the university. And eventually, to be able to see my parents and my family again,” she expressed.

Babson College, the institution she was enrolled at in Wellesley, issued a public comment regarding her case and saying that “our focus remains on supporting the student and their relatives”.

“My main goal in the US was always to study,” said López. “This event to me isn’t fair, because we went there to study and strive, to advance in search of that promise of opportunity so many of us dream of.”