Name: Trump admin admits 'mistake' after deporting college student
Uploaded: 2026-01-16T17:08:23.000Z
Duration: 6 min 43 s
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The Trump administration issuing a rare apology tonight, admitting that it made a mistake.

That's their word in the deportation of a Massachusetts college student.

She's a freshman at Babson College near Boston.

While she was there, she was going to fly home to surprise her family in Texas for Thanksgiving.

Melosa grew up in Texas after coming to the United States as a child seeking asylum.

Now tonight, a federal judge is weighing emergency action and whether Ani will be allowed to return to the United States.

And Lucia Lopez Baloza is out front now in her first live television interview since the Trump administration admitted it mistakenly deported her.

Her attorney, Todd Pomerleau, is also with us.

The government admitted in court that it made a mistake.

I mean, here you are months after this with what you've been going through.

What's your reaction to that stunning admission?

I was already kind of shocked because of everything that happened.

But I'm also with hearing that they have apologized to the mistake that they'd made.

I hope that based on this apology, I'm able to return back to my studies and also to be home with my parents.

Well, I think that's obviously incredibly gracious of you.

You accept their apology, and you just want to come home.

I know you can't disclose your current location, but you're not home.

I mean, do you have any idea of when you can return?

But I do hope to return as early as possible for me to start my semester and also, like, finish my semester, my spring semester at Babson.

Well, obviously, because you were going home for Thanksgiving, and then you didn't come back.

I mean, Todd, the deportation here happened right when Anya goes to the airport to go see her family at Thanksgiving, and

Her deportation happened in spite of a judge's order.

I think a lot of people just want to understand how does a deportation happen when it's in direct violation of a court order.

Aaron, thank you for having us on again tonight to talk about this tragedy.

You know, for months, we were left thinking that this was purposeful conduct by the Trump administration.

the government's attorney apologized on behalf of the United States, on behalf of the Trump administration, and

It's a rare apology, and they can only make this right.

An apology without a remedy is a hollow apology, in my view.

And what happened here is she was traveling with her Honduran passport.

That was her real id, trying to board a plane, and it was a ruse.

TSA and Immigration Enforcement were working in tandem, told her her boarding pass didn't work.

She was abruptly detained, taken to an ICE facility, deprived of phone calls for several days.

She didn't know she had a lawyer till Monday, and we'd sued Friday.

I didn't know where she was because she was disappeared from the database.

That would reflect that she was in the custody of ice.

We later learned in talking to Ani that she was a few miles down the road at a military base, held there for several hours when we were trying to find her and contact her and stop this from happening.

And what has apparently happened is an ICE officer received an email with a court order attached and thought that it didn't apply because the plane had already left Massachusetts.

And the next day, she was deported over a weekend before we even had a court hearing.

And I'd like to work with the Trump administration here.

She goes to Babson College, one of the best colleges in the world, to study business, just like the president.

These are great people, hardworking people.

And Ani, I know your dad said immigration officials had showed up at one point at your home in Austin.

One of the agents reportedly rushed at your father, according to the New York Times.

What happened then and how that even feels to think that that happened to others in your family while you're going through this.

It was pretty shocking when I heard the news.

It was more trauma from my end, knowing that I got deported.

Being deported and then hearing that my parents are also going through.

We been, like, trying our best to work this whole situation out as much as we can, but

Ani, you're a college student, and you go to the airport to surprise your family, and

I have never, never in my life experienced this at all.

And I was so worried because I had a lot of assignments that I had to turn in, and

I wanted to call at least somebody in my family to be able let the school know what's going on.

But it was so difficult to try to work with them because I tried to ask for phone calls, and

they were like, you have to wait and wait and wait until I was given one.

But it was so difficult just because being a college student, I mean, we really go through a lot of stress with, like, finals, and