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Any Lucia López Belloza had been separated from her mother and father and two younger sisters since beginning her freshman year at Babson College near the city of Boston in the late summer. A family friend provided her with airfare so she could travel back to Austin and surprise them for Thanksgiving.

The teenage university student was already at the departure gate at Logan Airport when she was informed there was an “problem” with her boarding pass; when she went to the service desk, she was handcuffed and taken into custody by what she understood to be two federal immigration agents.

“I thought: ‘I am going to surprise my parents for Thanksgiving, and now the surprise will be that I am not coming,’” López said.

She was allowed a single call to her parents, who immediately reached out to a lawyer. The next day, a federal judge granted an emergency order prohibiting her removal from the US for at least 72 hours until her case could be examined.

However the next morning, she was chained at her wrists, ankles and waist and expelled to her birth Central American nation, a nation which she left at the age of seven and of which she has almost no memory.

A Dangerous Country She Was Sent To

Home to about 11 million people, Honduras is a key trafficking routes for drugs moved from South America to its northern neighbor, and has spent many years grappling with the growing influence of violent cartels that dominate entire neighbourhoods, terrorize families and enlist young people. The nation's murder rate is three times the world average.

Honduras is also in a state of political turmoil, with a knife-edge presidential election of which the ballot tally has dragged on for several days, with officials and analysts condemning efforts by the US president, Donald Trump, to sway the electoral process.

“It never occurred to me I would experience this tragedy,” stated the young woman, who, since being deported on November 22nd, has been staying at her relatives' house in San Pedro Sula, Honduras’s economic hub.

A ‘Blatant Violation’ According to Her Lawyer

Her swift expulsion – under 48 hours after she was detained at the airport – has drawn international scrutiny as one of the starkest cases of reported violations under Trump’s mass deportation initiative.

“This situation is an unconstitutional nightmare,” said her lawyer, the Boston-based legal representative, who has represented other high-profile ICE detention cases.

“She received no explanation why she was detained,” added the attorney. “They restrained her like she was a hardened criminal, and then sent to Honduras with no chance to have a legal hearing or even talk to an attorney,” he added.

“Should this not be considered a breach of rights, I don’t know what is,” he concluded.

Government Response and Juridical Contradictions

Federal officials have stated the primary target of enforcement actions was dangerous criminals, but – like many others apprehended by ICE agents – López had no criminal record. Being undocumented in the US is a civil matter but a administrative violation.

A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson said the individual, “an undocumented individual”, was arrested because she “arrived in the country in 2014 and an court issued a removal order from the country in 2015, over 10 years ago. She has illegally stayed in the country since.”

Her lawyer said that neither she nor he was ever presented with the deportation order, and that even if it exists, a U.S. statute stipulates that arrests in such cases can only take place within a three-month period after the order is finalized – “not a decade after the fact,” said the lawyer.

“Her mum brought her here because of how terrible the circumstances were in Honduras, where gang members were killing and extorting people … They arrived just like the Pilgrims centuries ago, for a better life and to find safety,” said the attorney.

Conditions in San Pedro Sula

Honduras “faces a large emigration issue”, said Elizabeth G Kennedy, a Soros justice fellow who researches returned migrants in Central America. In the past decade, about a fifth of Hondurans have left the country, the majority traveling to the US.

In 2014, when López’s family fled Honduras, their city, San Pedro Sula, was considered the murder capital of the globe and their neighbourhood, La Pradera, was one of the most violent.

“The children and families that I’ve interviewed from there described a overwhelming presence of gangs who forced multiple families to flee,” noted the researcher.

Gang violence has a devastating impact on females, having been the primary cause of gender-based killings in Honduras recently. Teenage girls are especially vulnerable, making up the majority of female victims of assault.

“Now you have a teenager back in a country where it’s very dangerous to be a young woman, who was given no due process rights in the US,” she stated.

Pursuing for Return and Hope

The student's lawyer said they are now waiting for an official explanation from the US government to the court as to why the emergency order stopping her removal was ignored.

“It’s possible the government will say: ‘Sorry, we made a mistake here, and we’re going to {bring her back|facilitate her return.’ That would be the sensible and just thing to do.

“Yet they might have a different approach, and that’s going to require me to make a forceful argument that the court order was violated and seek a solution,” he explained.

“We’re not stopping until we get her back”.

López said she was attempting to stay focused: “I am trying to be as positive and as resilient as I can.

“My desire is to be able to progress and perhaps resume my education, whether in Honduras or by completing my semester at the college. And one day, to be able to reunite with my parents and my loved ones again,” she said.

Babson College, the school she was enrolled at in Massachusetts, issued a public comment addressing her case and saying that “our focus remains on assisting the student and their family”.

“My primary objective in the US was always to pursue an education,” said she. “What happened to me isn’t fair, because we came to learn and strive, to advance in pursuit of that American dream so many of us dream of.”