A 19-year-old college student on her way to surprise her family over the Thanksgiving holiday was detained at a Boston airport and then deported despite a federal judge’s order blocking her deportation, according to her attorney.
Lucía López Belloza, who entered the United States from Honduras when she was 8, was about to board her flight to Texas last Friday to visit her parents and siblings when airport authorities told her to step aside, her lawyer Todd Pomerleau told ABC News.
López Belloza was detained, informed that she had a deportation order and then arrested, her lawyer said. Hours after her arrest, court documents obtained by ABC News show that a federal judge ordered the government not to expel the 19-year-old from the United States and not to transfer her out of Massachusetts.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent waits in a hallway outside a New York Federal Plaza Immigration Courtroom inside the Jacob K. Javitz Federal Building in New York on July 17, 2025. U.S. President Donald Trump has made deporting undocumented immigrants a key priority for his second term, after successfully campaigning against an alleged “invasion” of criminals.
Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images
But according to Pomerleau, López Belloza was transferred that night to Texas and deported to Honduras the next day.
“She thought she was going to come home, see her family, fly back, take her final exams and now she’s sitting in Honduras,” Pomerleau said.
In a statement to ABC News affiliate WCVB in Boston, a spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement said López Belloza had a removal order since 2015 and confirmed his removal.
ABC News has reached out to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
Pomerleau said he will seek López Belloza’s return to the United States.
