Lawyer says student who was removed despite a court order was 'deported in shackles'
The attorney representing a 19-year-old college student who was removed to Honduras, despite a court order, while on her way home for Thanksgiving break, said his client was "deported in shackles like she's a murder suspect."
"They deported a child alone in shackles and handcuffs a few days before Thanksgiving," attorney Todd Pomerleau told ABC News.
Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, who entered the U.S. from Honduras when she was a young child, was about to board her flight from Massachusetts to Texas last Friday to visit her parents and siblings when airport authorities arrested her.
Court documents obtained by ABC News show that within hours of her detainment, a federal judge ordered the government not to remove Lopez Belloza from the U.S. and not to transfer her outside of Massachusetts. But according to Pomerleau, Lopez Belloza was transferred that evening to Texas and deported to Honduras the next day.
"She came here around seven years old, no, fleeing persecution with her family seeking asylum ... and now she's sitting in Honduras," Pomerleau said. "This shouldn't happen to her at all."
Pomerleau said that immigration authorities informed Lopez Belloza that she was issued a removal order in 2015, but that he hasn't seen a record of her original deportation order even though such orders are usually available in the Executive Office for Immigration Review database.
Regardless, Pomerleau said, she should not have been deported because a federal judge blocked her removal.
"The lack of communication from ICE and the fast-paced nature of their actions are highlighted with Any being deported despite a federal judge's order to maintain the status quo," Pomerleau said.
Pomerleau said he will be seeking Lopez Belloza's return.
"She had protections under the law," he said. "She was still in U.S. soil, and the Constitution applies to her like it does to everybody else. So we're going to make sure her rights are upheld. We're not stopping till she's returned."
