Federal Officials Apologize for Mistaken Student Deportation

Federal officials apologized in court Tuesday for the mistaken deportation of a 19-year-old Massachusetts college student, acknowledging a violation of a judicial order that should have delayed her removal from the United States.

Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, a freshman at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at Boston's Logan International Airport on November 20 while attempting to fly to Texas to surprise her family for Thanksgiving. Her family had emigrated from Honduras to the United States in 2014. Lopez Belloza was transferred to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Burlington, Massachusetts, and then flown to a detention center in Port Isabel, Texas. The following evening, on November 21, her attorney filed an emergency petition in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, resulting in an order directing authorities to hold her within the United States or Massachusetts for at least 72 hours to allow for legal review. Despite the order, she was placed on a flight from Harlingen, Texas, early on November 22 and arrived in Honduras later that day.

At a hearing before U.S. District Judge Richard G....