(The Hill) – The Trump administration during court proceedings earlier this week apologized for deporting a student attempting to fly home for Thanksgiving break last year.
Babson College student Any Lucia Lopez Belloza was detained on Nov. 20 at Boston Logan International Airport before boarding a flight to surprise her family in Texas for the holiday.
Lopez Belloza, who entered the U.S. as a child, was sent back to Honduras days after being detained despite a judge’s Nov. 21 order to keep her in Massachusetts or somewhere else in the U.S. for at least 72 hours, according to The Associated Press.
The Trump administration filed Jan. 2 declaration notifying the court that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer failed to let officials in Port Isabel, Texas, know that Lopez Belloza’s removal needed to be canceled, the AP reported.
However, the officer admitted he believed the judge’s order did not apply once Lopez Belloza was no longer in the state.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Sauter said during a Tuesday hearing, “On behalf of the government, we want to sincerely apologize” adding that the employee understands “he made a mistake,” according to the AP.
Sauter said the removal was the result of “an inadvertent mistake by one individual, not a willful act of violating a court order.”
Despite the controversy, the Trump administration maintained that it believes Lopez Belloza’s deportation was lawful, citing a decision from an immigration judge in 2016 ordering the removal of her and her mother. An appeal was dismissed a year later.
“I was hoping the government would show some leniency and bring her back. They violated a court order,” Lopez Belloza’s lawyer, Todd Pomerleau, said per the AP.
Still, U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns said she was the victim of a “tragic” bureaucratic mistake.
“It might not be anybody’s fault, but she was the victim of it,” Stearns said, noting that Lopez Belloza could re-enter the country after securing a student visa.
Late last year, Lopez Belloza questioned the Trump administration’s motives following her removal and other deportations of international students.
“Why is [President Trump] getting people who are living in the United States working day and night, people, people like me, who are in college, doing their dreams, having an education?” she asked in an interview with ABC News.
“It feels unfair,” Lopez Belloza told ABC. “If there was an order, then why did everything happen to me so fast, within three days?”