Federal judge dismisses deported college student's case against government
A federal judge in Massachusetts on Friday dismissed a habeas petition from a 19-year-old college student who was deported over Thanksgiving despite a court order blocking her removal.
U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns on Friday granted the government’s motion to dismiss, ruling that Any Lucia Lopez Belloza’s legal team missed their window to file for habeas in Massachusetts before she was moved to a Texas detention facility.
"Counsel was hired the same day she was detained and had ample opportunity to file a petition in Massachusetts," the judge wrote.
Lopez Belloza, who entered the United States from Honduras with her family when she was 8 years old, was about to board her flight from Massachusetts to Texas to surprise her parents for the holiday when immigration authorities detained her, she previously told ABC News.
The college freshman has been in Honduras since November.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson previously said Lopez Bellazo "entered the country in 2014 and an immigration judge ordered her removed from the country in 2015, over 10 years ago. She has illegally stayed in the country since."
The federal judge also said Lopez Belloza missed an opportunity to file for habeas in Texas when she turned down a government flight that was offered to her last week.
"The sad truth is that when Any declined the flight she also waived this court's only remaining basis for jurisdiction," Stearns said, adding that any previous grounds for civil contempt against the government dissolved once they complied with orders to facilitate her return.
Lopez Belloza's attorney filed a notice to appeal the judge's ruling.
Last week, Lopez Belloza said an ICE officer offered her a government flight to Texas and told her she would likely be released if she returned to the U.S. — even though government filings had stated the agency would re-detain and remove her if she returned.
Lopez Belloza's attorney, Todd Pomerleau, said last week the flight offered by ICE was a "trap" to re-detain the college student and deport her again.
"I have tried to trust what officials have said, especially when they apologized for a mistake that turned my life around," Lopez Belloza said. "But instead, I have been met with the broken promises and attacks against my family for speaking up."
"I was excited when I heard there was a flight that would take me back home, back to my community, my family," she added. "But government filing said something completely different. It showed that I was not going to be released at all and I would be detained again."
A DHS spokesperson said last week in a statement, "Complying with a court order, ICE attempted to facilitate Any Lopez-Belloza’s return back to the United States -- but she failed to appear for her pre-arranged flight. ICE made multiple attempts to reach out to her with no response. For operational security purposes, ICE does not disclose future law enforcement operations."
