🔗 Share this article

The revelation came from a highway exit sign that unveiled their ultimate location: Alexandria, Louisiana.

They traveled in the rear compartment of an federal transport truck – their possessions seized and travel documents not returned. The mother and her US citizen offspring, one of whom is fighting stage 4 kidney cancer, lacked information about where federal agents were directing them.

The apprehension

The family unit had been detained at an federal appointment near New Orleans on April 24. When denied access from contacting legal counsel, which they would later claim in official complaints breached due process, the family was relocated 200 miles to this rural town in central Louisiana.

"They never told me where I was going," the mother explained, providing details about her situation for the first time after her family's case gained attention. "Authorities directed that I couldn't ask questions, I asked where we were headed, but they didn't respond."

The deportation procedure

Rosario, 25, and her minor children were forcibly removed to Honduras in the early morning hours the subsequent morning, from a regional airfield in Alexandria that has transformed into a focal point for extensive immigration enforcement. The site houses a specialized holding facility that has been described as a legal "black hole" by legal representatives with clients inside, and it leads straight onto an runway area.

While the holding center contains solely male adults, confidential information indicate at least 3,142 women and children have been processed at the Alexandria airport on federal aircraft during the first 100 days of the current administration. Various detainees, like Rosario, are confined to undisclosed hotels before being deported or transferred to other confinement locations.

Hotel detention

The mother didn't remember which Alexandria hotel her family was directed toward. "I recall we entered through a vehicle access point, not the primary access," she remembered.

"We felt like captives in accommodation," Rosario said, noting: "The young ones would move closer to the door, and the women officers would show irritation."

Health issues

Rosario's four-year-old son Romeo was found to have metastatic kidney disease at the age of two, which had metastasized to his lungs, and was receiving "regular and critical medical intervention" at a children's healthcare facility in New Orleans before his arrest. His sister, Ruby, also a American national, was seven when she was apprehended with her family members.

Rosario "begged" guards at the hotel to allow her to use a telephone the night the family was there, she stated in legal filings. She was ultimately granted one brief phone call to her father and informed him she was in Alexandria.

The after-hours locating effort

The family was awakened at 2 a.m. the next morning, Rosario said, and brought straight to the airport in a van with other individuals also held at the hotel.

Unknown to Rosario, her legal team and representatives had looked extensively after hours to identify where the two families had been held, in an bid for legal action. But they remained undiscovered. The lawyers had made repeated requests to immigration authorities right after the apprehension to stop the transfer and determine her location. They had been repeatedly ignored, according to court documents.

"The Alexandria staging facility is itself essentially a void," said an expert, who is providing legal counsel in active court cases. "But in situations involving families, they will often not take them to the primary location, but place them in unidentified accommodations close by.

Judicial contentions

At the heart of the legal action filed on behalf of Rosario and additional plaintiffs is the assertion that immigration authorities have ignored established rules governing the care for US citizen children with parents subject to deportation. The directives state that authorities "are required to grant" parents "a reasonable opportunity" to make decisions regarding the "welfare or movement" of their young offspring.

Immigration officials have not yet addressed Rosario's allegations legally. The government agency did not respond to comprehensive queries about the claims.

The aviation facility incident

"Upon reaching the location, it was a mostly deserted facility," Rosario recalled. "Just immigration transports were coming in."

"Numerous transports appeared with more detainees," she said.

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

"That experience was traumatic," she said. "The kids kept questioning why everyone was restrained hand and foot ... if they were wrongdoers. I explained it was just part of the process."

The aircraft boarding

The family was then made to enter an aircraft, court filings state. At roughly then, according to records, an immigration regional supervisor ultimately answered to Rosario's attorney – notifying them a removal halt had been denied. Rosario said she had not consented at any point for her two American-born offspring to be sent to another country.

Advocates said the date of the detention may not have been coincidental. They said the check-in – postponed repeatedly without explanation – may have been arranged to match with a removal aircraft to Honduras the following day.

"They seem to direct as many individuals as they can toward that airport so they can fill the flight and send them out," explained a legal advocate.

The aftermath

The whole situation has caused lasting consequences, according to the legal action. Rosario persistently faces concerns about exploitation and kidnapping in Honduras.

In a earlier communication, the Department of Homeland Security stated that Rosario "chose" to bring her children to the required meeting in April, and was inquired whether she preferred authorities to assign the kids with someone protected. The agency also stated that Rosario decided on removal with her children.

Ruby, who was didn't complete her educational period in the US, is at risk of "academic regression" and is "undergoing serious psychological challenges", according to the litigation.

Romeo, who has now become five years old, was could not obtain specialized and life-saving medical treatment in Honduras. He temporarily visited the US, without his mother, to continue treatment.

"The boy's worsening medical status and the halt in his therapy have generated for her tremendous anxiety and mental suffering," the legal action alleges.

*Names of people involved have been altered.