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College student deported during Thanksgiving travel describes ICE officer’s intimidation

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A Massachusetts college student who was deported while trying to visit family for Thanksgiving said an immigration officer told her it wouldn’t matter if she spoke to a lawyer, she was going to be removed from the country anyway.

Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, a 19-year-old freshman at Babson College, was flown to Honduras on Nov. 22, two days after she was detained at Boston’s airport and one day after a judge ordered that she remain in the country.

In a court document filed Saturday, she described two sleepless nights — first, staying awake with excitement in anticipation of seeing her family, and then later, being crammed with 17 other women in a cell “which was so small that we did not even have enough space to sleep on the floor.”

Lopez Belloza, who is now staying with her grandparents, came to the U.S. in 2014 at age 8 and was ordered deported several years later. Though the government has argued that she missed multiple opportunities to appeal, Lopez Belloza said her previous attorney told her there was no removal order.

“If I had been aware of my 2017 deportation order, I would not have traveled with my valid passport,” she wrote. “I would have dedicated significant time and effort during the past eight years to hiring an attorney who could help me resolve my immigration situation.”

The government also argues that the judge who issued the Nov. 21 order preventing her removal lacked jurisdiction because by then, Lopez Belloza was already in Texas on her way out of the country. But lawyers for the student argue that Immigration and Customs Enforcement made it all but impossible to locate her.

According to Lopez Belloza, when she refused to sign a form consenting to deportation and asked to call her parents or a lawyer, a “tall, muscular, intimidating” ICE officer “said it didn’t matter if I spoke to a lawyer because I was going to be deported anyway.” She later was allowed to call her family from Massachusetts, but that was before she knew she would be flown to Texas and then Honduras.

In a separate filing, lawyers for Lopez Belloza said the government acted “in bad faith and with furtiveness” by failing to answer phone calls to the Boston-area ICE office or update its detainee locator database and by moving her without allowing her to notify her parents or counsel. They asked a judge to schedule a hearing and allow Lopez Belloza to return to the U.S. to testify.

The filings came a day after a group of seven retired judges submitted a letter to the court supporting Lopez Belloza’s request for a hearing on whether the government should be held in contempt for violating the order. They said allowing the government to willfully disobey orders makes a mockery of the Constitution.

Grandfather recovering from surgery after bison attack at Yellowstone sent him flying

By WTOP Staff
(CNN) — What started as a yearly trip for a grandfather and his grandson turned into a visit to a Montana hospital after a bison attack at Yellowstone National Park.Carl McDaniel, 65, was hospitalized with a broken femur after a bison charged and tossed him into the air Friday evening at the park’s Bridge Bay Campground, according to McDaniel and the National Park Service.He was visiting the park with his 13-year-old grandson when they decided to take a walk after dinner.Along the way, they encountered a large bison that appeared to be rolling around in the dust and was not bothering anyone, McDaniel told CNN.“We were about a hundred yards away,” McDaniel said. “He was not aggressive; he was not having problems and we took some pictures and decided to walk on.”McDaniel and his grandson snapped a quick photo and continued with their walk, video of the encounter shows. At the same time, a truck drove by, and the driver laid on his horn in what appeared to be an attempt to get the bison to move, McDaniel said. There is no audio on the video.The bison then appeared to become agitated and began running toward the pair.“There was little time to decide what to do. At that point, he was within 100 yards; he could be to us in seconds, so I told my grandson to run in one direction and I went the other to try and draw him away,” McDaniel said.The animal then pushed McDaniel with the top of its head, sending him flying into the air before he hit the ground, the grandfather said.“When I was on the ground immobile, unable to move, he was right on top of me. He could have stomped on me, he could have gored me, he could have done almost anything to take my life, and he did not do so,” McDaniel said.After McDaniel hit the ground, photographer Mike MacLeod, who captured the encounter on video, had to step in, he told Cowboy State Daily.“I was really afraid he was going to gore the guy on the ground, so I stopped videotaping and ran at the bison, yelled loud, and was trying to be as big and intimidating as possible,” MacLeod said.After the bison took off, people rushed over to McDaniel, who was in a lot of pain, MacLeod told Cowboy State Daily. Yellowstone EMS arrived soon after, he said.“Park emergency medical personnel responded and transported him to a nearby hospital,” the National Park Service said in confirming the incident in a statement to CNN.This is the second bison attack at Yellowstone this year. A 12-year-old was injured near Mud Volcano on June 26, according to the agency.After Friday’s attack, “all the people that were there were amazing; they were all positive, they were trying to help as best they could,” McDaniel said. A nurse started tending to his leg, while another bystander held his head.He was then transferred to a hospital in Bozeman, a two-hour journey during which he was in intense pain. He said he was grateful for the paramedic who helped him along the way.McDaniel broke his femur, the body’s strongest bone, in four places near his hip and suffered several bruises. He had surgery Sunday and could stand by Monday.“I will be doing physical therapy for the next few days to get to walk, but it was not as catastrophic as it could have been,” McDaniel said.The National Park Service advises visitors to stay at least 25 feet away from bison at all times and to never approach the animals. “If the bison follows you, spray bear spray as you are moving away, and seek cover behind nearby trees or cars,” the agency said.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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