The U.S. government apologized in federal court this week for deporting a Massachusetts college student despite an emergency court order intended to keep her in the country, acknowledging the removal was the result of a bureaucratic error.
Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, a 19-year-old freshman at Babson College, was detained at Boston’s airport on Nov. 20 while preparing to fly home to surprise her family for Thanksgiving. Two days later, she was flown to Honduras even though a judge had issued an emergency order directing the government to keep her in Massachusetts or elsewhere in the United States for at least 72 hours.
At a hearing Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Boston, attorneys for the U.S. Department of Justice acknowledged the violation of the court’s order and offered an apology on behalf of the government. Prosecutors said the deportation stemmed from a mistake by an U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who believed the order no longer applied once Lopez Belloza had been transferred out of Massachusetts.
Court filings show the officer failed to activate an internal alert system that would have notified other ICE officials that the case was under judicial review and that removal should be halted. The government characterized the violation as inadvertent rather than intentional.
Lopez Belloza and her family emigrated from Honduras to the United States in 2014. She is currently staying with grandparents in Honduras and studying remotely. She has not been detained since her removal and recently visited relatives in El Salvador.
Despite acknowledging the error, the government argued the mistake should not affect the underlying case. Prosecutors said the federal court lacks jurisdiction because the legal challenge was filed several hours after Lopez Belloza had already been transferred to Texas en route out of the country. They also maintained that her deportation was lawful based on a 2016 immigration judge’s order, upheld on appeal in 2017, that directed her and her mother to be removed.
U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns described the episode as a tragic bureaucratic failure and said he appreciated the government’s acknowledgment of the mistake. He indicated the violation did not appear intentional and suggested he was unlikely to hold the government in contempt. Stearns also questioned whether the court has authority to intervene, given the timing of the filings.
The case is the latest in a series of deportations carried out despite court orders, raising concerns among immigration advocates and legal scholars. Lopez Belloza’s attorney has urged the government to allow her to return to the United States to complete her studies while he seeks to reopen the underlying removal order, arguing that her deportation deprived her of due process.
Source: Phila. Inquirer