The federal government is challenging a court order to repatriate Any López Belloza, a college student who was deported after trying to board a flight to Austin last November.
The Trump administration admitted last month that it wrongfully deported the 19-year-old Honduran-born college student, but this week it argued the Massachusetts federal court doesn’t have jurisdiction over the case — and that it would deport her again if she were to return to the U.S.
The government’s filing complicates the return of López Belloza, who’s enrolled at Babson College near Boston.
In a call Friday, López Belloza’s attorney Todd Pomerleau said federal agents had been in touch with her via WhatsApp, offering a flight back to the U.S. without guaranteeing she wouldn’t be immediately deported back to Honduras.
“All they have to do is let her in and leave her alone,” Pomerleau said. “She has a green card application pending, and yet they want to continue to torment her. They want to fly her back here to engage in a charade to then separate her from her loved ones again.”
Pomerleau called the tactic a ploy to bring his client back to the country and deport her without giving her a day in court.
KUT News reached out to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for comment on Pomerleau’s allegation but has not heard back.
López Belloza said she was angry about the lack of movement on her case and that “no one should have to feel this powerless.”
“All I’m asking is for honesty and fairness,” she said. “I’m asking to be treated like a human with rights and whose life matters, and to be allowed to keep building the life I have worked so hard for in the United States.”
López Belloza fled Honduras with her family when she was a child. She and her mother arrived in Texas and, for years, thought they’d been granted asylum. When López Belloza tried to board a flight in Boston to visit her family in Austin for Thanksgiving, she was detained, then deported by immigration authorities. Pomerleau argued her deportation violated a judge’s order to hold her in the U.S. until her case played out in court.
Last month, attorneys for the federal government called her deportation a mistake, and two weeks ago, the federal judge in Massachusetts ordered the Trump administration to lay out a plan to bring her back by Friday.
But in a Thursday filing, attorneys for the federal government said they won’t follow that plan — and that the federal court doesn’t have standing to rule on López Belloza’s case.
Congressman Greg Casar of Austin said the denial by the government to follow the judge’s order is “outrageous.”
“We cannot let America become a country where the government can ignore judges’ orders, and then refuse to make things right when it makes a mistake,” he said. “Any must immediately be allowed to fly back to Boston to continue her studies.”
Pomerleau said he would respond to the federal government’s motion as soon as Friday, and that he is prepared to continue trying the case in Boston — or in “any courtroom in America.”
“There’s no excuse for this lack of transparency or lack of accountability,” he said. “You say you’re sorry, you make it right. You don’t say your sorry and continue to torment people.”