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Read: Babson student deported to Honduras shares her experience in ICE detention
Any LucĂa LĂłpez Belloza was deported while trying to fly to Texas to surprise her family for Thanksgiving.
Any Lucía López Belloza, a 19-year-old freshman at Babson College, thought that she would have a routine flight from Logan Airport in Boston to Texas on Nov. 20. She was hoping to surprise her family there ahead of Thanksgiving.
Instead, Belloza was detained at the airport and deported a few days later to Honduras. Now, she is telling her story.
Belloza fled Honduras when she was a child, seeking asylum with her family in Texas.
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Belloza’s lawyer, Todd Pomerleau, insists that she was deported in violation of a court order. According to ICE, an immigration judge ordered her to be deported in 2015. Pomerleau has said that he cannot find records of that order, only ones showing that her case was closed in 2017.
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Belloza’s sudden deportation is just the latest in a series of actions taken by federal authorities this year that are alarming immigrants, their advocates, and lawyers who specialize in immigration law.
Belloza is now staying with family in Honduras as she tries to figure out how to continue earning her college degree and potentially reunite with her parents and siblings.
In the meantime, federal agents are reportedly investigating Belloza’s family in Austin. Agents in unmarked vehicles arrived at their home on Sunday, rushing Belloza’s father as he washed his car. He retreated into the home, but agents entered the family’s backyard and lingered on the property for hours before leaving. They never knocked on the door or tried to communicate with the family, according to The New York Times.
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Belloza shared a firsthand account of her experience in The Cut this week. She describes a bewildering experience being held up by ICE agents at Logan, then flown with other immigrants to a federal facility in Texas. Detention felt like “torture,” she said.
“Many women in those cells had been in the system for months, even a year. After a few hours of waiting, it really hit me that I was getting deported. I freaked out, thinking, Why is everything happening so fast? I got to tell my family that I’m in Texas, but now I’m leaving for Honduras. Not even within 24 hours, I’m being transferred. This is not right,” she told The Cut.
Federal officials claim they are targeting “the worst of the worst,” but multiple reports indicate that vast numbers of immigrants being detained have no criminal convictions or even pending charges. Belloza commented briefly on the Trump administration’s mass deportation plans.
“Trump is just trying to get rid of innocent people. Me, a girl who’s in college, you can see that I’m no criminal,” she told The Cut.
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Belloza also reflected on how she is feeling after a few weeks in Honduras.
“It’s been nearly two weeks, and I’m getting used to everything. It just feels like I don’t belong here. My family in Honduras has been so helpful and I haven’t really had alone time, which I’m glad for, because I feel like if I do, I’ll fall into a dark hole. Everything right now is so hard. I’m not with my mom, I’m not with my sisters,” she said in the interview.
Read the full interview in The Cut.
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