Almost three months after having reported to Honduras to a student of Babson Collegea private university Massachusettsthe United States government acknowledged before a federal court that it made a mistake, since there was a court order that prevented its immediate expulsion from the country.
The student in question is Any Lucía López Bellozaa 19-year-old university student Massachusettswho was arrested on November 20 in the boston airport when I was about to travel to Texas to spend the Thanksgiving Day with his family.
López Belloza was sent to Honduras two days after being detained, despite the fact that a judge ordered that the student remain in the country for at least 72 hours.
Government admits error and apologizes
During the hearing in federal court in Boston, government representatives admitted that a Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent did not activate the necessary internal protocols to stop the deportation, which led to the violation of the court order issued on November 21.
The assistant prosecutor Mark Sauter offered a formal apologyensuring that the mistake was involuntary and not a deliberate action by the government.
“On behalf of the government, we sincerely apologize.. “This mistake was involuntary by an individual, not an intentional act of violating a court order,” Sauter said.
Defense denounces violation of rights
López Belloza’s lawyer, Todd Pomerleaumaintained that the deportation constituted a violation of the due process and requested that the student be able to return to the United States to continue her studies in Babson College.
According to the defense, the government deprived the young woman of her rights by ignoring the court order, despite the fact that his deportation had previously been scheduled by immigration decisions from 2016 and 2017.
The judge Richard Stearns described the event as a serious bureaucratic error, but noted that there seemed to be no intention to disobey the court order, leaving open the possibility that López Belloza explores legal avenues to regularize your immigration status and return to the country.
López Belloza, whose family emigrated from Honduras to the United States in 2014, is currently staying with his grandparents and studying remotely.
His case joins other recent incidents in which people have been deported despite court rulings that should have stopped their expulsion, such as cases of Kilmar Ábrego García and a Guatemalan man identified as OCG.
During the hearing, government attorneys argued that the court may lack jurisdiction since the legal action was filed several hours after the student was already en route to Texas. However, they admitted that the judge’s order was violated due to a misunderstanding about its scope.
The future of Any Lucía López Belloza
Judge Stearns indicated that, although the error was serious, the young woman was the victim of an administrative failure and could request a student visa to return to the United States. The defense plans to work on reopening the underlying deportation order and his possible return to the country to finish his college education.
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