The Trump administration has issued an apology following the erroneous deportation of a young woman.
Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, originally from Honduras, came to the United States in 2014 at the age of eight. She has resided there since and is currently a student at Babson College in Massachusetts.
Lopez Belloza’s family is based in Texas, and in November, she planned to fly home to surprise them for Thanksgiving. Instead, she was unexpectedly deported to Honduras.
It turns out there has been a deportation order for Lopez Belloza since 2017, although she claims she was unaware of it.
With the deportation order in effect, the student was detained at Boston airport on November 20. Within 48 hours, she was sent to Honduras, where she is currently staying with her grandparents.
The deportation occurred despite a federal judge’s emergency order on November 21 that prohibited her removal from Massachusetts or the United States for at least 72 hours.
When Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) discovered the order, Lopez Belloza was already in Texas. An ICE officer assumed the order was void since she had left Massachusetts, leading to her deportation to Honduras.
Moreover, the ICE officer failed to initiate the correct procedures to inform other ICE officers that a judicial review was pending and that deportation should be paused.
Assistant US Attorney Mark Sauter has apologized on behalf of the officer’s mistake.
In a court hearing on Tuesday (January 13), Sauter stated: “On behalf of the government, we want to sincerely apologize.”
He emphasized that the officer realized his mistake and described the violation of the court order as ‘an inadvertent mistake by one individual, not a wilful act of violating a court order’.
Despite the apology, the government has not committed to returning Lopez Belloza to the United States.
There are ongoing questions regarding whether the 19-year-old was aware of the deportation order against her.
The government contends that Lopez Belloza missed several opportunities to contest the deportation order.
However, the college student maintains that she was unaware of its existence, and her former lawyer reassured her that there was no pending removal order, as reported by AP.
She explained: “If I had been aware of my 2017 deportation order, I would not have traveled with my valid passport.
“I would have dedicated significant time and effort during the past eight years to hiring an attorney who could help me resolve my immigration situation.”