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The Lucía López Belloza had been separated from her parents and two younger sisters since starting her first semester at a business college near Boston in August. An acquaintance gave her airfare so she could travel back to her family in Texas and surprise them for Thanksgiving.

The teenage university student was standing at the departure gate at Logan Airport when she was informed there was an “problem” with her boarding pass; when she reached customer service, she was restrained and arrested by what she understood to be two federal immigration agents.

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

She was permitted a single call to her parents, who contacted a legal representative. The next day, a federal judge granted an emergency order prohibiting her removal from the US for at least three days until her court proceedings could be examined.

But the following day, she was chained at her hands, ankles and torso and forcibly removed to her native Honduras, a country which she left at the tender age of seven and of which she has virtually no memory.

The Dangerous Country López Was Deported To

A nation home to about 11 million people, Honduras is one of the main trafficking routes for drugs transported from South America to its northern neighbor, and has spent decades struggling against the expanding power of violent cartels that dominate whole districts, extort families and enlist young people. The country’s murder rate is three times the world average.

Honduras is also in a political maelstrom, with a knife-edge presidential election of which the ballot tally has dragged on for days, with officials and analysts condemning repeated attempts by the American leader, Donald Trump, to sway Hondurans’ votes.

“I never thought I would go through this tragedy,” said López, who, since being deported on November 22nd, has been residing at her grandparents’ home in San Pedro Sula, Honduras’s second-largest city.

An ‘Unconstitutional Horror Show’ Says Legal Counsel

Her rapid deportation – under two days after she was detained at the airport – has attracted international scrutiny as one of the starkest cases of reported abuses under Trump’s mass deportation policy.

“Her case is an unconstitutional horror show,” said her attorney, the Boston-based Todd Pomerleau, who has defended other high-profile ICE detainees.

“She received no explanation why she was detained,” added Pomerleau. “She was shackled like she was a dangerous felon, and then sent to Honduras with no chance to have a legal hearing or even consult with an lawyer,” he continued.

“If that isn’t a breach of rights, it is hard to imagine what would be,” Pomerleau said.

Government Response and Juridical Contradictions

Trump administration officials have stated the primary target of enforcement actions was dangerous criminals, but – like many others apprehended by immigration officers – the student had a clean record. Being undocumented in the US is not a crime but a civil infraction.

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, over 10 years ago. She has illegally stayed in the country since.”

Her lawyer said that no one was ever presented with the removal order, and that even if it exists, a U.S. statute specifies that arrests in such instances can only take place within a three-month period after the order is finalized – “not a decade after the fact,” argued Pomerleau.

“Her mother came to the US because of how terrible the conditions were in Honduras, where gang members were murdering and threatening people … They arrived just like the Pilgrims 400 years ago, for a brighter future and to escape persecution,” said the lawyer.

Conditions in the Honduran City

Honduras “has a large emigration problem”, said Elizabeth G Kennedy, a academic who researches returned migrants in Central America. In the past decade, about a fifth of Hondurans left the country, the majority traveling to the US.

In that year, when the student's family fled Honduras, their city, San Pedro Sula, was considered the most violent city of the world and their community, La Pradera, was one of the most violent.

“The children and families that I have spoken with from there described a overwhelming control of gangs who compelled many residents to leave,” said Kennedy.

Gang violence takes a particularly heavy toll on women, having been the main driver of gender-based killings in Honduras recently. Teenage girls are especially vulnerable, making up the largest share of victims of sexual violence.

“And now you have a teenager back in a country where it’s very dangerous to be a young woman, who was given no legal recourse in the US,” she stated.

Fighting for Justice and Hope

Pomerleau said they are now waiting for an official explanation from the US government to the judge as to why the emergency order stopping her removal was ignored.

“There is a chance the government will say: ‘We apologize, we erred here, and we’re going to {bring her back|facilitate her return.’ That would be the easy and reasonable thing to do.

“Yet they might have a alternative stance, and that’s going to require me to make a forceful argument that the court order was violated and seek a solution,” he explained.

“We’re not stopping until we get her back”.

The student said she was attempting to stay focused: “I try to be as optimistic and as strong as I can.

“I want to be able to progress and maybe resume my education, whether in Honduras or by finishing my term at the college. And eventually, to be able to see my parents and my family again,” she expressed.

Her university, the institution she was attending in Massachusetts, issued a statement addressing her situation and saying that “the priority remains on supporting the individual and their relatives”.

“My main goal in the US was always to study,” stated López. “What happened to me isn’t fair, because we came to study and strive, to move forward in pursuit of that American dream so many of us dream of.”