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

They were transported in the cargo area of an federal transport truck – their items seized and identification retained by authorities. Rosario and her two American-born children, including a child who faces advanced renal cancer, had no knowledge about where authorities were directing them.

The detention

The family members had been detained at an immigration check-in near New Orleans on April 24. After being prevented from contacting legal counsel, which they would eventually argue in legal documents breached due process, the family was relocated 200 miles to this modest settlement in the heart of the region.

"They never told me where I was going," Rosario stated, providing details about her experience for the premier instance after her family's case received coverage. "I was told that I shouldn't inquire, I questioned our location, but they remained silent."

The forced departure

The 25-year-old mother, 25, and her minor children were forcibly removed to Honduras in the early morning hours the next day, from a regional airfield in Alexandria that has transformed into a focal point for extensive immigration enforcement. The facility houses a unique detention center that has been called a legal "black hole" by lawyers with people held there, and it opens immediately onto an runway area.

While the detention facility contains solely adult male detainees, obtained records indicate at least 3,142 women and children have been processed at the Alexandria airport on immigration transports 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 holding facilities.

Hotel detention

The mother didn't remember which Alexandria hotel her family was brought to. "I recall we entered through a garage entrance, not the primary access," she recalled.

"Our situation resembled captives in accommodation," Rosario said, explaining: "The young ones would move closer to the door, and the security personnel would get mad."

Medical concerns

The mother's young boy Romeo was found to have stage 4 kidney cancer at the age of two, which had reached his lungs, and was receiving "consistent and vital medical intervention" at a pediatric medical center in New Orleans before his detention by authorities. His female sibling, Ruby, also a American national, was seven when she was detained with her mother and brother.

Rosario "pleaded with" guards at the hotel to grant access to a telephone the night the family was there, she reported in official complaints. She was finally allowed one limited communication to her father and informed him she was in Alexandria.

The after-hours locating effort

The family was roused at 2 a.m. the subsequent day, Rosario said, and taken directly to the airport in a government vehicle with additional detainees also held at the hotel.

Without her knowledge, her lawyers and supporters had searched throughout the night to find where the two families had been detained, in an effort to secure legal action. But they were not located. The legal representatives had made numerous petitions to immigration authorities right after the arrest to stop the transfer and find her position. They had been consistently disregarded, according to legal filings.

"The Alexandria staging facility is itself fundamentally opaque," said an immigration advocate, who is handling the case in active court cases. "Yet with cases involving families, they will often not take them to the facility itself, but put them in unidentified accommodations near the facility.

Legal arguments

At the core of the litigation filed on behalf of Rosario and additional plaintiffs is the assertion that immigration authorities have violated their own regulations governing the care for US citizen children with parents facing removal. The directives state that authorities "should afford" parents "a reasonable opportunity" to make decisions regarding the "welfare or movement" of their young offspring.

Federal authorities have not yet responded to Rosario's legal assertions. The government agency did not address specific inquiries about the allegations.

The aviation facility incident

"When we arrived, it was a mostly deserted facility," Rosario recalled. "Just immigration transports were coming in."

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

They were confined to the transport at the airport for over four hours, seeing other vans approach with men shackled at their hands and feet.

"That experience was traumatic," she said. "The kids kept inquiring about everyone was shackled hand and foot ... if they were bad people. I said it was just standard procedure."

The flight departure

The family was then forced onto an aircraft, court filings state. At around this period, according to documents, an immigration field office director ultimately answered to Rosario's attorney – informing them a deportation delay had been refused. Rosario said she had not consented at any point for her two citizen minors to be sent to another country.

Attorneys said the date of the detention may not have been coincidental. They said the check-in – postponed repeatedly without explanation – may have been scheduled to align with a transport plane to Honduras the subsequent day.

"Authorities appear to funnel as many cases as they can toward that airport so they can fill the flight and remove them," stated a attorney.

The aftermath

The whole situation has caused lasting consequences, according to the lawsuit. Rosario continues to live with anxiety regarding threats and abduction in Honduras.

In a earlier communication, the federal agency asserted that Rosario "elected" to bring her children to the immigration check-in in April, and was asked if she wanted authorities to place the children with someone protected. The agency also stated that Rosario decided on removal with her children.

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

Romeo, who has now reached five years, was denied vital and necessary medical care in Honduras. He briefly returned to the US, without his mother, to resume care.

"The child's declining condition and the halt in his therapy have created for the mother substantial worry and emotional turmoil," the lawsuit claims.

*Names of family members have been changed.