🔗 Share this article

They discovered their location through a roadway marker that unveiled their ultimate location: Alexandria, Louisiana.

They were transported in the back of an federal transport truck – their possessions confiscated and passports not returned. Rosario and her two children with citizenship, including a child who is fighting advanced renal cancer, lacked information about where immigration officials were transporting them.

The detention

The family unit had been detained at an federal appointment near New Orleans on April 24. Following restrictions from consulting their attorney, which they would subsequently allege in official complaints breached due process, the family was moved 200 miles to this modest settlement in the state's interior.

"Our location remained undisclosed," the mother explained, answering inquiries about her situation for the first time after her family's case gained attention. "They instructed me that I must not seek information, I questioned our location, but they remained silent."

The removal process

The 25-year-old mother, 25, and her minor children were involuntarily deported to Honduras in the early morning hours the next day, from a regional airfield in Alexandria that has emerged as a hub for extensive immigration enforcement. The location houses a specialized holding facility that has been described as a legal "black hole" by attorneys with detained individuals, and it connects directly onto an runway area.

While the confinement area accommodates only grown men, leaked documents indicate at least 3,142 females and minors have passed through the Alexandria airport on federal aircraft during the initial three months of the present government. Various detainees, like Rosario, are detained at unidentified accommodations before being deported or relocated to other confinement locations.

Hotel detention

The mother didn't remember which Alexandria hotel her family was brought to. "I recall we accessed via a parking area, not the primary access," she recalled.

"We felt like prisoners in a room," Rosario said, noting: "The young ones would attempt to approach the door, and the women officers would show irritation."

Medical concerns

Rosario's young boy Romeo was identified with stage 4 kidney cancer at the age of two, which had spread to his lungs, and was receiving "ongoing and essential cancer care" at a specialized children's hospital in New Orleans before his arrest. His sister, Ruby, also a US citizen, was seven when she was detained with her relatives.

Rosario "pleaded with" guards at the hotel to allow her to use a telephone the night the family was there, she claimed in official complaints. She was ultimately granted one brief phone call to her father and notified him she was in Alexandria.

The after-hours locating effort

The family was woken up at 2 a.m. the subsequent day, Rosario said, and taken directly to the airport in a van with another family also confined in the hotel.

Without her knowledge, her attorneys and supporters had searched throughout the night to identify where the two families had been kept, in an effort to secure legal intervention. But they were not located. The attorneys had made repeated requests to immigration authorities right after the detention to prevent removal and determine her location. They had been repeatedly ignored, according to official records.

"This processing center is itself already a black hole," said an expert, who is handling the case in current legal proceedings. "Yet with cases involving families, they will often not take them to the facility itself, but put them in secret lodging near the facility.

Legal arguments

At the heart of the legal action filed on behalf of Rosario and another family is the allegation that immigration authorities have ignored established rules governing the handling of US citizen children with parents facing removal. The guidelines state that authorities "are required to grant" parents "a reasonable opportunity" to make determinations concerning the "wellbeing or relocation" of their underage dependents.

Federal authorities have not yet responded to Rosario's allegations legally. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to comprehensive queries about the assertions.

The aviation facility incident

"Upon reaching the location, it was a largely vacant terminal," Rosario stated. "Just immigration transports were pulling up."

"There were multiple vans with additional families," she said.

They were confined to the transport at the airport for an extended period, watching other vehicles arrive with men chained at their limbs.

"That portion was upsetting," she said. "My children kept asking why everyone was restrained hand and foot ... if they were bad people. I told them it was just normal protocol."

The flight departure

The family was then forced onto an aircraft, court filings state. At around this period, according to filings, an immigration regional supervisor eventually responded to Rosario's attorney – informing them a deportation delay had been denied. Rosario said she had not provided approval for her two US citizen children to be sent to another country.

Legal representatives said the timing of the arrests may not have been accidental. They said the meeting – changed multiple times without reason – may have been scheduled to align with a transport plane to Honduras the following day.

"Authorities appear to funnel as many cases as they can toward that airport so they can occupy the plane and deport them," commented a attorney.

The consequences

The entire experience has caused permanent damage, according to the court case. Rosario persistently faces concerns about exploitation and illegal detention in Honduras.

In a earlier communication, the Department of Homeland Security stated that Rosario "decided" to bring her children to the federal appointment in April, and was inquired whether she preferred authorities to assign the kids with someone safe. The organization also asserted that Rosario elected departure with her children.

Ruby, who was didn't complete her academic term in the US, is at risk of "academic regression" and is "facing substantial emotional difficulties", according to the litigation.

Romeo, who has now become five years old, was could not obtain critical and essential medical treatment in Honduras. He made a short trip to the US, without his mother, to resume care.

"The boy's worsening medical status and the disruption to his treatment have created for the mother significant distress and mental suffering," the court documents state.

*Names of people involved have been modified.