Any Lucía López Belloza was trying to board a flight from Boston to Austin when immigration enforcement agents arrested her on November 20. The Babson College freshman had planned to surprise her family for Thanksgiving. But within 48 hours, López Belloza was instead deported to Honduras, a country she left as a 7-year-old child when her family came to the U.S. to seek asylum. 

López Belloza was expelled despite a court order blocking the government from doing so while her immigration case is pending. Trump administration officials have called her a “criminal,” and the Department of Homeland Security claims López Belloza entered the country without authorization in 2014 and that an immigration judge ordered her removal in 2015. “She received full due process and was removed to Honduras,” DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. López Belloza’s attorney, Todd Pomerleau, disputes this account, saying that government records indicate his client’s case was closed in 2017.

Amid increased media attention on López Belloza’s case, immigration-enforcement agents showed up on December 7 at her family home in Austin, the New York Times reported. Her father was washing his car when agents rushed toward him, though he was able to run back inside the house; agents remained outside the door for the next two hours before leaving, according to the report. The agents did not show a warrant, the family’s lawyer told the Times, nor did they stop at other houses in the neighborhood.

Speaking from her grandparents’ home in northern Honduras on December 4, López Belloza says, “The president likes to say that we’re all criminals. We’re not.” Below, she shares what it was like to be shuttled between immigration detention centers and suddenly deported, how she’s adjusting to life in Honduras, and what comes next.

I didn’t sleep the night before my flight; I was so excited. I was happy to surprise my family and see their faces. My flight was at five in the morning. When I got to the airport,........

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