US judge gives Trump administration three weeks to return deported student | ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
A US federal judge in Boston on Friday gave the Trump administration three weeks to “correct the mistake” it made by deporting a college student to Honduras who was traveling home to visit family for Thanksgiving; because he suggested that he be given a student visa.
U.S. district judge Richard Stearns set the deadline earlier this week after an administration lawyer apologized for violating a court order that was supposed to prevent 19-year-old Any Lucia López Belloza from being sent to Honduras. He is a Honduran citizen who was brought to the United States by his mother when he was eight years old and seeking asylum.
“Fortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to seeing justice done in what everyone agrees was a mix of mistakes that ended badly for Any,” he said.
Stearns said the “simplest solution” would be for the US State Department to grant him a visa. He said the alternative for him would be to instruct the Trump administration to arrange for López Belloza’s return and face the threat of holding the government in contempt if he refuses.
He gave the administration 21 days to inform him about how the process would proceed. The justice ministry declined to comment. His lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
López Belloza, a freshman at Babson College in Massachusetts, was arrested Nov. 20 at Boston’s Logan airport while trying to head to Texas to surprise his family for Thanksgiving.
His lawyer filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts to challenge his detention, and a judge issued an order on Nov. 21 prohibiting López Belloza from being deported or sent out of state for 72 hours.
However, by then, López Belloza had already moved to Texas. The next day he was sent to Honduras, where he stayed with his grandparents.
Stearns, who was appointed by Bill Clinton, said that because López Belloza was out of Massachusetts when his lawyer filed suit, he did not have jurisdiction to handle his future overall case.
But he said the government had the opportunity to correct the “tragic (and avoidable) mistake” of violating the court order.
A lawyer working for the government on Tuesday apologized for the “mistake” made by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who failed to properly mark the court order because he thought it was no longer valid because it was outside Massachusetts.
