A 19-year-old college student's plans to surprise her family for Thanksgiving ended abruptly when she was detained at Boston airport and subsequently deported to Honduras.
Airport Detention Sparks Legal Battle
Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, a business student at Babson College in Massachusetts, was waiting to board her flight to Texas on November 20 when gate agents at Logan International Airport identified an issue with her ticket. The freshman, who was travelling to visit her parents for the holiday, was directed to customer service where she was immediately detained without explanation.
According to attorney Todd Pomerleau, who filed a lawsuit on her behalf, Lopez Belloza received no due process during her arrest. "We believe her constitutional rights were violated, the way she was arrested, not having any notice why she's arrested, not shown any documents to justify her abrupt, egregious removal from the United States Of America," Pomerleau told WHDH.
Swift Deportation Despite Court Order
Following her detention, Lopez Belloza was transferred to an ICE facility in Burlington before being flown to Texas and ultimately deported to Honduras. The situation escalated when a judge issued an order preventing her removal, but authorities proceeded with her deportation regardless.
For two agonising days, Lopez Belloza's family remained unaware of her whereabouts until she managed to contact them from Honduras on November 22 - a country she hadn't lived in since childhood. The terrified teenager eventually reached her grandparents' house.
Unknown Removal Order From 2017
American Immigration Council policy director Nayna Gupta revealed to the Boston Globe that Lopez Belloza had a removal order dating back to 2017 that neither she nor her family knew about. Gupta explained that many immigrants remain unaware of such orders, which can be issued in absentia or sent to outdated addresses.
Pomerleau emphasised that his client qualifies as a child under immigration law, being unmarried and under 21, and has no criminal record. The National Immigration Project reports approximately 1.3 million people had removal orders against them at the beginning of 2025, with the Trump administration having deported over 500,000 undocumented individuals according to DHS figures.
Lopez Belloza had moved to the United States with her family in 2014 when she was just nine or ten years old and was pursuing a business degree on scholarship. Her attorney told the Globe: "She was really sad. I told her, 'We're going to fight like hell until we bring you back.'"
