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The revelation came from a interstate indicator that unveiled their end point: Alexandria, Louisiana.

They traveled in the rear compartment of an federal transport truck – their personal belongings confiscated and travel documents retained by authorities. The mother and her two children with citizenship, including a child who faces stage 4 kidney cancer, lacked information about where immigration officials were directing them.

The initial encounter

The family unit had been apprehended at an immigration check-in near New Orleans on April 24. Following restrictions 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 the heart of the region.

"Our location remained undisclosed," Rosario stated, responding to questions about her situation for the first time after her family's case gained attention. "I was told that I couldn't ask questions, I inquired about our destination, but they offered no answer."

The removal process

The 25-year-old mother, 25, and her young offspring were forcibly removed to Honduras in the middle of the night the following day, from a small aviation facility in Alexandria that has transformed into a focal point for extensive immigration enforcement. The location houses a unique detention center that has been called a legal "vacuum" by legal representatives with people held there, and it leads straight onto an airport tarmac.

While the confinement area accommodates only adult male detainees, confidential information indicate at least 3,142 mothers and children have passed through the Alexandria airport on immigration transports during the opening period of the current administration. Some individuals, like Rosario, are held in unidentified accommodations before being deported or relocated to other detention sites.

Temporary confinement

Rosario could not recall which Alexandria hotel her family was brought to. "I just remember we came in through a parking area, not the front door," she stated.

"We felt like detainees in lodging," Rosario said, adding: "The children would try to go toward the door, and the security personnel would show irritation."

Medical concerns

Rosario's child Romeo was diagnosed with advanced renal carcinoma at the age of two, which had metastasized to his lungs, and was receiving "regular and critical medical intervention" at a specialized children's hospital in New Orleans before his apprehension. His female sibling, Ruby, also a American national, was seven when she was apprehended with her mother and brother.

Rosario "pleaded with" guards at the hotel to allow her to use a telephone the night the family was there, she stated in federal court documents. She was eventually permitted one brief phone call to her father and notified him she was in Alexandria.

The overnight search

The family was woken up at 2 a.m. the following morning, Rosario said, and brought straight to the airport in a transport vehicle with another family also detained at the hotel.

Without her knowledge, her attorneys and advocates had looked extensively after hours to identify where the two families had been kept, in an bid for legal assistance. But they remained undiscovered. The lawyers had made multiple applications to immigration authorities right after the detention to block the deportation and find her position. They had been consistently disregarded, according to official records.

"This processing center is itself essentially a void," said an expert, who is handling the case in current legal proceedings. "Yet with cases involving families, they will frequently avoid bringing to the primary location, but place them in secret lodging in proximity.

Judicial contentions

At the center of the lawsuit filed on behalf of Rosario and another family is the claim that federal agencies have violated their own regulations governing the care for US citizen children with parents under removal proceedings. The directives state that authorities "should afford" parents "sufficient time" to make choices about 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 specific inquiries about the assertions.

The airport experience

"When we arrived, it was a mostly deserted facility," Rosario remembered. "Just immigration transports were arriving."

"Several vehicles were present with other mothers and children," she said.

They were held in the vehicle at the airport for over four hours, observing other vehicles arrive with men chained at their hands and feet.

"That portion was distressing," she said. "My offspring kept inquiring about everyone was shackled hand and foot ... if they were criminals. I told them it was just standard procedure."

The flight departure

The family was then made to enter an aircraft, official records state. At roughly then, according to documents, an immigration field office director eventually responded to Rosario's attorney – telling them a deportation delay had been denied. Rosario said she had not provided approval for her two American-born offspring to be deported abroad.

Attorneys said the timing of the arrests may not have been random. They said the check-in – changed multiple times without justification – may have been timed to coincide with a deportation flight to Honduras the subsequent day.

"Officials apparently channel as many individuals as they can toward that airport so they can occupy the plane and deport them," explained a attorney.

The aftermath

The entire experience has caused lasting consequences, according to the lawsuit. Rosario still experiences concerns about exploitation and illegal detention in Honduras.

In a earlier communication, the government department stated that Rosario "chose" to bring her children to the required meeting in April, and was inquired whether she preferred authorities to relocate the minors with someone secure. The department also asserted that Rosario decided on removal with her children.

Ruby, who was unable to complete her academic term in the US, is at risk of "learning setbacks" and is "experiencing significant mental health issues", according to the court documents.

Romeo, who has now turned five, was could not obtain critical and essential medical treatment in Honduras. He briefly returned to the US, without his mother, to continue treatment.

"The child's declining condition and the halt in his therapy have created for the mother substantial worry and mental suffering," the court documents state.

*Names of family members have been altered.