Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, a 19-year-old college student at Babson College, was detained by ICE while trying to make a surprise trip to see her family in Austin. Within about 48 hours of her arrest, the agency deported her to Honduras.
Courtesy of Todd Pomerleau
Late last month when immigration agents detained 19-year-old Any Lucia Lopez Belloza before she could board a flight home to Austin, her family – and her lawyer – were stunned by how quickly the federal government moved to deport her.
Just two days after being arrested at Boston Logan International Airport, the college student was shackled and placed on a flight back to her native Honduras where she remains as she searches for a new university. The deportation unfolded so rapidly that she had already been flown to Texas by the time her lawyer could file an emergency motion to stop it – a stay a federal judge approved within minutes.
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A new court filing obtained by the American-Statesman explains how the U.S. government is justifying the legality of the lightning-fast deportation. Legal experts say the filing, and the case at large, represents one of the increasingly common and troubling tactics the Trump administration is using amid its ongoing immigration crackdown. It’s an approach that relies on speed and geography to shield its actions from judicial review.
Government says court lacks jurisdiction, issue is moot
In the Wednesday filing, the federal government argues the court that granted Lopez Belloza’s habeas petition lacks jurisdiction because she was not physically in the state of Massachusetts when the petition was filed. It also contends the habeas petition – intended to free someone from unlawful custody – is moot because she is no longer detained.
“When the petition was filed on November 21, 2025 at 6:00 p.m., petitioner was in ICE custody in Texas,” the filing states. “As petitioner’s arrest and detention were lawful, and petitioner has been released from custody, this court should dismiss the petition rather than transfer it to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.”
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Todd Pomerleau, Lopez Belloza’s attorney, said his team believed she was still in Massachusetts when they filed the habeas petition because ICE’s own detainee locator last listed her there. Lopez Belloza also told her parents she was being held in the state during the only phone call she was allowed.
Pomerleau called the government’s position a “red herring” that misuses jurisdictional doctrine and enables the government to evade court oversight simply by outpacing the process.
“You can’t just ignore a court order,” he said, adding that he will continue pushing for Lopez Belloza’s return.
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No longer tolerated
Yet Huyen Pham, an immigration law professor at Texas A&M, said the argument falls into a legal gray area because deportations traditionally have not occurred this quickly.
“We don’t know if the deportation was illegal,” Pham said. “That’s the problem with a deportation before someone’s day in court.”
What is clearer, Pham said, is that the case reflects the government’s willingness to bypass due process protections for a non-criminal immigrant — and reveals the judiciary’s limited ability to safeguard those rights when the executive branch refuses to cooperate.
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“I don’t think it’s anybody’s idea of a fair legal system,” Pham said.
Lopez Belloza’s detention was among the first widely reported cases of an immigration arrest inside a domestic airport terminal.
But in a prepared statement, an unnamed Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told the Statesman that what happened to the college student was “nothing new” and suggested the Transportation Security Administration is helping to enforce immigration laws.
“Back in February, Secretary [Kristi] Noem reversed the horrendous Biden-era policy that allowed aliens in our country illegally to jet around our country and do so without identification,” the statement said. “Under President Trump, TSA and DHS will no longer tolerate this. This administration is working diligently to ensure that aliens in our country illegally can no longer fly unless it is out of our country to self-deport.”
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The legal implications of a lightning-fast deportation
Lopez Belloza had lived in Austin with her family since 2014 and had no criminal record, her lawyer said. She was returning home for Thanksgiving on Nov. 20 when ICE officers detained her in Boston, citing a years-old deportation order the family says they did not know existed.
Within about 30 hours, she was flown to Texas and held there as Pomerleau sought emergency court intervention in Massachusetts. The Wednesday filing says he secured the order about an hour after Lopez Belloza’s plane landed in the Lone Star State — and less than a day before she was removed to Honduras.
By moving so quickly, Pham said, ICE created a “gap” in procedural protections, using its own speed to avoid judicial oversight in its quest to meet the Trump administration’s stated deportation targets.
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Elissa Steglich, an immigration law professor at the University of Texas, said the filing reflects ICE’s practice of transferring people to jurisdictions less likely to halt deportations, and away from courts that have granted relief in similar cases.
“It has very much become a game in terms of ICE trying to swiftly move people to more friendly jurisdictions,” Steglich said.
At the same time, she said, ICE has expanded the circumstances requiring detention for immigrants without legal status. This has pushed attorneys to rely more heavily on habeas petitions and the limits of those petitions are being increasingly tested, Steglich said.
Pham said Lopez Belloza’s case underscores those limits. Though the filing was unable to stop her removal, it will now be far harder to undo it.
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“With her out of the country it will make it much more difficult,” Pham said.
‘The court of popular opinion’
Experts say cases like Lopez Belloza’s may be more common than news reports suggest as ICE ramps up enforcement to meet internal targets.
“A lot of people, they don’t have the resources to file and contest this, so we never hear about it happening,” Pham said. “But this is happening multifold across the United States.”
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Lopez Belloza, who could not obtain a Real ID-compliant driver’s license because of her lack of status, was traveling with a Honduran passport when she was detained. Pomerleau said she had used her Honduran passport for domestic travel several times this year.
In a Thursday interview with MSNow, Lopez Belloza said she hopes to return to the United States to see her parents and younger siblings. Her father told the Statesman the family knows that will be difficult, and that she is preparing to enroll in college in Honduras.
Steglich noted that while the executive branch has the authority to return someone it has deported, doing so typically requires political will or public pressure.
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Pham said courts are unlikely to force such a shift, given what she views as a growing power imbalance between the executive and judicial branches. The only meaningful pressure point, she said, may be “the court of popular opinion.”
Lopez Belloza’s legal team has until Thursday to respond to the government’s filing.