Trump’s ICE created a deportation nightmare for student on Thanksgiving, then blamed their court order violation on one ‘inadvertent mistake’

The Trump administration recently apologized in court for the chaotic deportation of a college student last year, admitting that the agency violated a judge’s order during the process, a huge failure in communication and procedure within Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, a student at Babson College, was detained on November 20 while trying to catch a flight at Boston Logan International Airport. She was planning to surprise her family in Texas for the Thanksgiving holiday. Lopez Belloza had originally entered the U.S. as a child, but despite her current status as a college student, she was removed and sent back to Honduras just days after being detained

Here is where the process went completely sideways. A judge issued an order on November 21 requiring that she be kept in Massachusetts, or somewhere else in the U.S., for at least 72 hours. That court order was ignored, and the removal went forward.

ICE doesn’t care if the courts side with them, they are out of control

The Trump administration later filed a declaration on January 2 notifying the court about the reason for the violation. It seems that an ICE officer simply failed to tell officials in Port Isabel, Texas, that the removal needed to be canceled because of the judge’s 72-hour hold order. This is a massive breakdown in internal procedure. I can’t believe an officer thought a federal order just magically disappears when someone crosses state lines, but that’s essentially what happened.

The officer actually admitted he believed the judge’s order did not apply once Lopez Belloza was no longer in Massachusetts.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Sauter delivered the official apology during a Tuesday hearing. Sauter stated, “On behalf of the government, we want to sincerely apologize,” and added that the employee understands “he made a mistake.” Sauter tried to minimize the seriousness of the violation, claiming the removal was the result of “an inadvertent mistake by one individual, not a willful act of violating a court order.”

The administration’s defense is confusing, however. Even while apologizing for the procedural error, the Trump administration still insisted that the underlying deportation was lawful. They cited a 2016 decision from an immigration judge that had ordered the removal of Lopez Belloza and her mother, a decision whose appeal was dismissed a year later.

Lopez Belloza’s lawyer, Todd Pomerleau, was understandably frustrated by the outcome. Pomerleau said he was “hoping the government would show some leniency and bring her back. They violated a court order.”

U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns weighed in on the case, calling the entire incident a “tragic” bureaucratic mistake. Stearns made it clear that while the error might not have been deliberate, Lopez Belloza was certainly the victim of this failure. He noted that she could reenter the country if she secured a student visa, which is at least a path forward for her, but it doesn’t excuse the chaos.

Lopez Belloza herself questioned the motivation behind her removal and other deportations of international students late last year. She asked why President Trump is targeting people “who are living in the United States working day and night, people, people like me, who are in college, doing their dreams, having an education?” She felt the entire process was deeply unfair.

“If there was an order, then why did everything happen to me so fast, within three days?” she wanted to know. It’s hard to argue with her perspective. When a court order is in place, you’d expect the system to slow down and follow the rules, not speed up the removal process through sheer error.