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They discovered their location through a interstate indicator that unveiled their end point: Alexandria, Louisiana.

Their journey continued in the cargo area of an federal transport truck – their items confiscated and passports held by agents. Rosario and her two American-born children, including a child who is fighting advanced renal cancer, lacked information about where federal agents were directing them.

The initial encounter

The family members had been apprehended at an required meeting near New Orleans on April 24. After being prevented from consulting their attorney, which they would subsequently allege in court filings ignored legal protections, the family was transported 200 miles to this small community in central Louisiana.

"I received no information about our destination," she recounted, providing details about her ordeal for the initial occasion after her family's case became public. "I was told that I shouldn't inquire, I questioned our location, but they remained silent."

The deportation procedure

Rosario, 25, and her young offspring were involuntarily deported to Honduras in the early morning hours the following day, from a rural airport in Alexandria that has transformed into a focal point for large-scale removal programs. The site houses a specialized holding facility that has been referred to as a legal "vacuum" by attorneys with clients inside, and it connects directly onto an airport tarmac.

While the confinement area holds exclusively grown men, confidential information indicate at least 3,142 females and minors have traveled via the Alexandria airport on federal aircraft during the opening period of the present government. Various detainees, like Rosario, are held in unidentified accommodations before being deported or relocated to other holding facilities.

Temporary confinement

Rosario could not recall which Alexandria hotel her family was brought to. "My recollection is we entered through a vehicle access point, not the primary access," she remembered.

"We felt like detainees in lodging," Rosario said, adding: "My kids would move closer to the door, and the women officers would get mad."

Medical concerns

Rosario's child Romeo was identified with advanced renal carcinoma at the age of two, which had spread to his lungs, and was receiving "regular and critical medical intervention" at a pediatric medical center in New Orleans before his arrest. His female sibling, Ruby, also a US citizen, was seven when she was detained with her mother and brother.

Rosario "begged" guards at the hotel to allow her to use a telephone the night the family was there, she claimed in legal filings. She was eventually permitted one short conversation to her father and notified him she was in Alexandria.

The after-hours locating effort

The family was roused at 2 a.m. the next morning, Rosario said, and brought straight to the airport in a transport vehicle with additional detainees also detained at the hotel.

Unbeknownst to the mother, her attorneys and representatives had conducted overnight searches to identify where the two families had been detained, in an effort to secure legal action. But they remained undiscovered. The legal representatives had made multiple applications to immigration authorities immediately after the apprehension to block the deportation and find her position. They had been regularly overlooked, according to court documents.

"The Louisiana location is itself already a black hole," said an expert, who is representing Rosario in current legal proceedings. "Yet with cases involving families, they will often not take them to the main center, but place them in undisclosed hotel rooms close by.

Legal arguments

At the heart of the legal action filed on behalf of Rosario and another family is the allegation that federal agencies have breached internal policies governing the treatment of US citizen children with parents subject to deportation. The policies state that authorities "are required to grant" parents "a reasonable opportunity" to make decisions regarding the "wellbeing or relocation" of their minor children.

Government agencies have not yet answered Rosario's legal assertions. The Department of Homeland Security did not answer comprehensive queries about the claims.

The terminal ordeal

"Upon reaching the location, it was a mostly deserted facility," Rosario stated. "Only deportation vehicles were arriving."

"There were multiple vans with other mothers and children," she said.

They were kept in the van at the airport for four and a half hours, observing other vans approach with men restrained at their limbs.

"That segment was traumatic," she said. "My offspring kept questioning why everyone was restrained hand and foot ... if they were bad people. I told them it was just standard procedure."

The aircraft boarding

The family was then compelled to board an aircraft, court filings state. At around this period, according to documents, an immigration regional supervisor eventually responded to Rosario's attorney – telling them a stay of removal had been rejected. Rosario said she had not consented at any point for her two American-born offspring to be removed to Honduras.

Advocates said the date of the detention may not have been coincidental. They said the check-in – rescheduled three times without reason – may have been timed to coincide with a deportation flight to Honduras the next day.

"Authorities appear to funnel as many individuals as they can toward that airport so they can occupy the plane and remove them," commented a legal advocate.

The ongoing impact

The whole situation has caused irreparable harm, according to the legal action. Rosario continues to live with anxiety regarding threats and kidnapping in Honduras.

In a earlier communication, the Department of Homeland Security stated that Rosario "elected" to bring her children to the required meeting in April, and was questioned about authorities to assign the kids with someone protected. The department also claimed that Rosario elected departure with her children.

Ruby, who was didn't complete her academic term in the US, is at risk of "academic regression" and is "facing substantial psychological challenges", according to the legal proceedings.

Romeo, who has now become five years old, was could not obtain vital and necessary medical care in Honduras. He temporarily visited the US, without his mother, to resume care.

"The boy's worsening medical status and the interruption of his care have generated for her tremendous anxiety and emotional turmoil," the court documents state.

*Names of family members have been changed.