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Any Lucía López Belloza had been separated from her parents and two younger sisters since beginning her first semester at a business college near the city of Boston in August. An acquaintance provided her with plane tickets so she could travel back to her family in Texas and surprise them for Thanksgiving.

The teenage business student was standing at the boarding gate at Boston airport when she was told there was an “issue” with her boarding pass; when she went to the service desk, she was restrained and taken into custody by what she believed to be two federal immigration agents.

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

She was permitted a single call to her parents, who immediately reached out to a lawyer. A day later, a federal judge granted an emergency order barring her deportation from the US for at least 72 hours until her case could be examined.

But the following day, she was chained at her wrists, ankles and torso and expelled to her native Honduras, a country which she departed at the tender age of seven and of which she has scarcely any recollection.

A Dangerous Country She Was Sent Back To

A nation home to about 11 million people, Honduras is a key trafficking routes for narcotics transported from South America to Mexico, and has spent many years grappling with the expanding influence of armed gangs that control entire neighbourhoods, extort families and enlist young people. The nation's homicide rate is three times the world average.

Honduras is also in a state of political turmoil, with a knife-edge national vote of which the vote count has been delayed for several days, with local politicians and analysts criticising efforts by the American leader, Donald Trump, to influence the electoral process.

“It never occurred to me I would go through this tragedy,” said López, who, since being deported on November 22nd, has been staying at her grandparents’ home in a major Honduran city, Honduras’s second-largest city.

An ‘Unconstitutional Horror Show’ Says Her Lawyer

Her rapid deportation – under two days after she was arrested at the airport – has attracted global attention as one of the starkest examples of alleged violations under Trump’s large-scale removal initiative.

“Her case is an legally dubious nightmare,” said her attorney, the Boston-based Todd Pomerleau, who has defended other notable ICE detainees.

“She received no explanation why she was detained,” said Pomerleau. “She was shackled like she was some type of hardened criminal, and then sent to Honduras with no chance to have a court hearing or even consult with an attorney,” he continued.

“Should this not be considered a breach of rights, I don’t know what is,” he concluded.

Government Response and Legal Contradictions

Federal officials repeatedly said the primary target of arrests and deportations was individuals with serious records, but – like most immigrants apprehended by immigration officers – the student had no criminal record. Lacking legal status in the US is not a crime but a civil infraction.

A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) representative said López, “an undocumented individual”, was arrested because she “entered the country in 2014 and an immigration judge ordered her removed from the country in 2015, over 10 years ago. She has remained unlawfully in the country since.”

Her lawyer said that no one was ever presented with the removal order, and that even if it does exist, a U.S. statute stipulates 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 conditions were in Honduras, where criminal groups were killing and extorting people … They came here just like the early settlers 400 years ago, for a brighter future and to escape persecution,” explained the lawyer.

Conditions in the Honduran City

Honduras “has a large out-migration problem”, said Elizabeth G Kennedy, a Soros justice fellow who researches returned migrants in the region. In the last ten years, about a fifth of Hondurans left the country, most traveling to the US.

In 2014, when López’s family fled Honduras, their home town, this urban center, was considered the murder capital of the globe and their neighbourhood, a specific district, was one of the most violent.

“The children and families that I have spoken with from there described a very strong presence of criminal organizations who compelled many residents to flee,” said Kennedy.

Gang violence takes a particularly heavy toll on women, having been the primary cause of femicides in Honduras last year. Teenage girls are especially vulnerable, making up the largest share of victims of assault.

“Now you have a teenager back in a place where the risks are high to be a female, who was given no due process rights in the US,” she stated.

Fighting for Justice and Hope

The student's lawyer said they are now waiting for an formal response from the US government to the court as to why the emergency order barring her removal was not respected.

“There is a chance the administration 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 would necessitate me to make a forceful argument that the judicial ruling was disobeyed and demand a remedy,” he explained.

“We’re not stopping until we she is returned”.

López said she was trying to stay focused: “I try to be as optimistic and as strong as I can.

“My desire is to be able to move forward and maybe continue my studies, whether here or by finishing my term at the university. And one day, to be able to reunite with my parents and my loved ones again,” she said.

Her university, the school she was enrolled at in Massachusetts, issued a public comment regarding her situation and saying that “our focus remains on assisting the student and their relatives”.

“My main goal in the US was always to study,” said López. “What happened to me is unjust, because we went there to study and strive, to advance in search of that American dream so many of us had.”