By Nate Raymond
BOSTON, Jan 13 (Reuters) – A U.S. federal judge on Tuesday urged the Trump administration to resolve a “bureaucratic mess” by issuing a student visa to a college student who was deported to Honduras after being arrested at Boston’s airport while trying to visit her family for Thanksgiving.
U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns during a hearing in Boston raised that prospect as a “practical solution” to how to resolve a lawsuit by Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, a 19-year-old student at Babson College who was sent to Honduras in violation of a court order.
Lopez Belloza, who was brought to the U.S. from Honduras by her parents when she was 8, was arrested on November 20 based on a removal order she says she did not know existed.
Her lawyer filed a lawsuit challenging her detention the next day.
A federal judge in Massachusetts issued an order on November 21 barring Lopez Belloza from being deported or transferred out of Massachusetts for 72 hours.
But by that time, Lopez Belloza had already been flown to Texas, potentially stripping Stearns’ court of jurisdiction. She was flown to Honduras on November 22.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Sauter acknowledged the court’s order was violated, a development he blamed on a “mistake” by an officer with Immigration and Customs Enforcement who thought the order no longer applied and failed to properly flag it.
“On behalf of the government, we want to sincerely apologize,” Sauter said.
He said there were no grounds to hold anyone in contempt, however. He called it a rare instance of the government not following an order in the over 700 cases filed in Massachusetts by migrants challenging their detention since President Donald Trump took office last year with a hardline immigration agenda.
Stearns, who was appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton, commended Sauter for acknowledging the mistake and asked what the remedy should be, saying “we don’t want to lose sight that we have a real human being here.”
Todd Pomerleau, Lopez Belloza’s lawyer, urged Stearns to order the government to facilitate the return of his client and to hold officials in contempt.
“The rule of law ought to matter,” Pomerleau said.
Stearns did not immediately rule. But he floated an alternative, recommending the State Department issue Lopez Belloza a student visa allowing her to finish her studies.
“We all recognize a mistake was made,” Stearns said. “She’s a very sympathetic person, and there should be some means to addressing this.”
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
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