AUSA Apologizes for Deporting Babson College Student

An assistant U.S. attorney apologized Tuesday on behalf of the Trump administration for wrongfully deporting a Babson College freshman, The Boston Globe reported. But it still remains unclear if or when the student will be brought back to the U.S. 

The student, Lopez Belloza, was first detained at Boston Logan International Airport on Thanksgiving as she attempted to fly home to Texas and surprise her family. 

A lawyer filed for her release in Massachusetts the next day, and a judge promptly ordered the administration not to transfer or deport her. But by that point, Belloza had already been moved between several facilities in Massachusetts and transferred to Texas. The day after that, she was deported to Honduras. 

Mark Sauter, the assistant attorney defending the Trump administration and its actions, admitted that her deportation was an error. He explained that when the court order blocking Belloza’s deportation reached Immigration and Customs Enforcement, she was already in Texas. As a result, when the officer handling her case saw that the court order came from Massachusetts, he assumed that it no longer applied.

“I want to sincerely apologize,” Sauter said in the Boston federal court that is now handling Belloza’s case. “The government regrets that violation and acknowledges that violation.”

He added that the ICE officer “has been counseled about that mistake.”

But while Richard G. Stearns, the federal judge overseeing the case, thanked Sauter for being “forthright,” he has yet to rule on whether the government had to bring Belloza back to the U.S.

This is a “tragic case of bureaucracy going wrong,” he said. “It might not be anybody’s fault, but she was the victim of it.”