Nineteen-year-old Babson College freshman Any Lucia Lopez Belloza arrived at Boston Logan International Airport on November 20 anticipating a long-awaited Thanksgiving visit with her family in Texas. Nearing the end of her first semester as a business major, she was looking forward to sharing her early college experiences with her parents and two younger sisters.
Instead, moments before boarding her flight, Lopez Belloza was detained by federal immigration officers. According to her attorney, Todd Pomerleau, she was informed there was an issue with her boarding pass and directed toward customer service, where she was met by agents, placed in handcuffs, and removed from the airport. Within roughly 48 hours, she had been transported to Texas, held overnight in a detention facility, and then flown to Honduras the country of her birth, which she had not seen since age seven.
Court filings and Pomerleau state that her removal occurred despite a federal judge’s order prohibiting the government from deporting her or relocating her outside Massachusetts. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in a statement to CNN, said Lopez Belloza entered the United States in 2014 and was ordered removed in 2015, but had remained in the country unlawfully. Pomerleau disputes the existence of any enforceable removal order, noting that the only records he has located indicate Lopez Belloza’s case was closed in 2017. Her father has also stated publicly that although the family’s asylum request was denied, they were told they did not face deportation orders.
Following her arrest at Logan Airport, Lopez Belloza was transported to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s regional headquarters in Burlington, Massachusetts, then to a military installation in the state, and finally to Texas. Her attorney reports that she was restrained with ankle chains and handcuffs during the process. DHS officials maintain that she “received full due process and was removed to Honduras.”
Lopez Belloza grew up primarily in Texas, where her father is raising her two sisters, ages two and five. After excelling academically in high school, she earned a scholarship to attend Babson College. Her long-term goal, according to her attorney, was to study business in order to help her father establish his own tailoring shop he had crafted handmade suits for her to wear at interviews and professional events.
Babson College issued statements acknowledging that a student had been detained by immigration authorities during holiday travel, emphasizing that legal restrictions limit the institution’s ability to comment further, but affirming its commitment to supporting the student, her family, and the college community.
Speaking from her grandparents’ home in San Pedro Sula to The Boston Globe, which first reported the story, Lopez Belloza described looking forward to returning to Austin and sharing her early accomplishments as a college freshman. “I have worked so hard to be able to be at Babson my first semester, that was my dream,” she said.
Pomerleau’s current priority is seeking judicial intervention to return her to the United States. “We intend to ask the federal court to require the government to bring her back, given the seriousness of the due process violations in this case,” he stated.
