Any Lucia Lopez Belloza was waiting to board her flight home when immigration officers pulled her aside at Boston’s Logan Airport. The 19-year-old Babson College freshman had no criminal record and no reason to think she’d be detained. Forty-eight hours later, she was in Honduras, handcuffed and shackled, deported despite a federal judge’s explicit order blocking her removal.
The Trump administration now admits it was a mistake.
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What Happened at Logan
Lopez Belloza arrived at Logan on November 20, 2025, ready to surprise her parents in Austin, Texas, for Thanksgiving. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents stopped her before she could board.
“When they told me, ‘You’re going to come with us,’ I was like, ‘Oh, I have a plane that I literally have to be there right now,'” she told ABC News. “They’re like, ‘No, you’re not even going to go on the plane.'”
Officers transferred her to an ICE facility in Burlington, Massachusetts. She spent two nights in a holding cell with 17 other women, no beds, just a thermal blanket on the floor. Nobody explained why she was being held.
The Court Order ICE Ignored
Her attorney Todd Pomerleau filed an emergency lawsuit. On November 21, federal Judge Richard Stearns issued a temporary restraining order. Lopez Belloza could not be removed from the United States. She could not be transferred outside Massachusetts.
By the time the order came through, ICE had already flown her to Texas. The next day, November 22, agents deported her to Honduras.
“She had chains around her ankles. Handcuffs on her wrists,” Pomerleau told CNN. “Put on a plane and deported to a country she hadn’t been at in like 12 years.”
A Full Scholarship and Business Dreams
Lopez Belloza grew up in Austin after arriving from Honduras with her mother in 2014. She was 7 years old. They fled the country and applied for asylum.
She graduated from a Texas high school and earned a full scholarship to Babson College, where she planned to study business. Her goal was simple: help her father, a tailor, open his own shop.
“My dream was for me to be in college, fulfill not only mine but also my family dream,” she told ABC News before her deportation. “I really got a good college that basically wanted me, and I wanted them.”
The Removal Order She Never Knew About
In 2016, an immigration judge denied the asylum application and ordered Lopez Belloza and her mother removed from the United States. She was 10 or 11 years old. The Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed their appeal in 2017.
Lopez Belloza says her previous attorney told the family there was no deportation order. She never knew one existed. If she had, she told reporters, she would never have tried to fly that day.
Judge Stearns wrote in court documents that he “seriously doubts that an eleven-year-old child would have known of the order, or that, if she did, she would have understood its ramifications.”
“We Want to Sincerely Apologize”
On January 13, 2026, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Sauter stood before Judge Stearns in Boston and did something rare for the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement: he apologized.
“On behalf of the government, we want to sincerely apologize,” Sauter said. “The government regrets that violation and acknowledges that violation.”
An ICE deportation officer misread the court order, Sauter explained. The agent thought it no longer applied once Lopez Belloza left Massachusetts. He never alerted ICE officers in Texas that her removal needed to stop. The employee has been counseled.
Judge Stearns called it a “tragic case of bureaucracy going wrong.”
Studying Business from Her Grandparents’ Home
Lopez Belloza now lives in San Pedro Sula with grandparents she barely remembers. She logs into Babson classes remotely, trying to keep up while thousands of miles from campus.
“I just want to be back at Babson, that’s the dream that I want,” she told the Boston Globe. “I just want to be back at my dorm, with my roommate, my friends.”
Her parents remain in Austin, afraid to leave their house. They’ve applied for green cards but face ICE targeting themselves.
“They’re scared. They’re scared to step outside because of how everything is,” Lopez Belloza said. “They’re traumatized. I’m traumatized.”
Judge Suggests Visa Solution
On January 17, Judge Stearns issued an order directing the State Department to consider issuing Lopez Belloza a student visa within 21 days. He sent the recommendation directly to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“There is happily no one-size-fits-all solution for seeing that justice be done in what all agree was an amalgam of errors that ended badly for Any,” Stearns wrote.
Pomerleau has filed multiple legal pathways for her return:
Temporary return to restore her legal status before the deportation
T visa continuation for trafficking victims, which she’s already pursuing
Student visa application, though the 2016 removal order complicates this
Permanent residency applications for both Lopez Belloza and her parents
Massachusetts Lawmakers Demand Action
On January 28, Massachusetts congressional members sent a letter to the administration calling Lopez Belloza “a valuable member of our community” who “excelled in school and made it, against the odds, into a top-tier university with a full scholarship.”
“Your administration decided to deport her in shackles in direct violation of a federal court order,” the letter stated. “We reiterate our demand that she be allowed to return to the U.S.”
Babson College continues supporting Lopez Belloza, allowing her to study remotely while her case works through federal court.
What This Case Reveals
Lopez Belloza’s deportation reflects broader tensions in immigration enforcement. The government maintains her removal was lawful under the 2016 order. Her attorneys argue she was denied due process when ICE violated a court order meant to give her time to fight her case.
Similar violations have occurred under the current administration. Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador despite a court ruling preventing it. The administration eventually brought him back after Supreme Court intervention.
For Lopez Belloza, the question remains whether the government’s apology will turn into action. She waits in Honduras, taking business classes on a laptop, hoping to return to the campus she left for Thanksgiving and never saw again.
Federal officials have not yet responded to Judge Stearns’ visa recommendation. The 21-day window continues counting down.
