A judge ordered the U.S. to bring back a college student deported “by mistake” — and DHS is pushing back

BOSTON — A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of a Honduran college student who was deported in violation of a court order, escalating a case that has become a flashpoint in the immigration enforcement debate.

The student, Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, attends Babson College in Massachusetts. Reuters reported she was detained at Boston’s Logan Airport while traveling to spend Thanksgiving with family in Texas, then deported to Honduras on Nov. 22 even though her lawyer had secured a court order the previous day barring her deportation or transfer out of Massachusetts for 72 hours.

U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns gave the administration two weeks and set a deadline of Feb. 27 to enable her return. In his order, Stearns said the government “commendably admits that it did wrong” and wrote that it was time for the government “to make amends.”

What makes this story travel fast is the collision of three things: (1) the government acknowledging a violation, (2) the government still resisting the fix, and (3) the personal details that make it easy for people to picture the stakes. Reuters reported Lopez Belloza is 20, came to the U.S. at age 8 with her mother seeking asylum, and said she didn’t know she was under a final order of removal — which became the basis for her arrest. She remains in Honduras with grandparents, according to Reuters.

At a January hearing, a government lawyer apologized for the violation and attributed it to an ICE officer’s “mistake” in not properly flagging the court order. But Reuters reported that a DHS spokesperson later disputed that framing, saying, “There was no ‘mistake,’” while also asserting she had received due process.

The legal fight matters beyond one student because it tests how courts can enforce their own orders when deportations move quickly — and what “facilitate return” means when someone is already outside the country. Reuters reported the State Department had called issuing a new student visa “unfeasible,” and ICE declined to help her return before Stearns issued the order.