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The revelation came from a interstate indicator that revealed their final destination: Alexandria, Louisiana.

They traveled in the cargo area of an government transport – their items confiscated and identification not returned. Rosario and her US citizen offspring, including a child who battles stage 4 kidney cancer, lacked information about where federal agents were transporting them.

The detention

The family unit had been detained at an federal appointment near New Orleans on April 24. After being prevented from consulting their attorney, which they would subsequently allege in legal documents violated their rights, the family was relocated 200 miles to this modest settlement in the state's interior.

"Our location remained undisclosed," she recounted, providing details about her experience for the first time after her family's case received coverage. "Authorities directed that I shouldn't inquire, I inquired about our destination, but they remained silent."

The forced departure

The 25-year-old mother, 25, and her young offspring were involuntarily deported to Honduras in the early morning hours the subsequent morning, from a rural airport in Alexandria that has become a center for extensive immigration enforcement. The site houses a distinctive confinement area that has been described as a legal "void" by attorneys with clients inside, and it connects directly onto an runway area.

While the confinement area holds exclusively male adults, confidential information indicate at least 3,142 women and children have been processed at the Alexandria airport on government charter flights during the first 100 days of the existing leadership. Some individuals, like Rosario, are held in undisclosed hotels before being sent abroad or moved to other holding facilities.

Temporary confinement

She was unable to identify which Alexandria hotel her family was taken to. "My recollection is we entered through a garage entrance, not the primary access," she stated.

"We felt like detainees in lodging," Rosario said, adding: "The young ones would move closer to the door, and the women officers would become angry."

Health issues

The mother's young boy Romeo was diagnosed with metastatic kidney disease at the age of two, which had metastasized to his lungs, and was receiving "ongoing and essential life-saving cancer treatment" at a specialized children's hospital in New Orleans before his apprehension. His female sibling, Ruby, also a US citizen, was seven when she was detained with her mother and brother.

Rosario "pleaded with" guards at the hotel to permit utilization of a telephone the night the family was there, she reported in federal court documents. She was finally allowed one brief phone call to her father and informed him she was in Alexandria.

The after-hours locating effort

The family was woken up at 2 a.m. the next morning, Rosario said, and taken directly to the airport in a government vehicle with additional detainees also confined in the hotel.

Unknown to Rosario, her lawyers and representatives had conducted overnight searches to find where the two families had been held, in an bid for legal intervention. But they remained undiscovered. The lawyers had made repeated requests to immigration authorities following the detention to block the deportation and determine her location. They had been repeatedly ignored, according to official records.

"The Louisiana location is itself fundamentally opaque," said an expert, who is providing legal counsel in active court cases. "However, when dealing involving families, they will typically not transport them to the primary location, but put them in unidentified accommodations close by.

Court claims

At the core of the litigation filed on behalf of Rosario and other individuals is the assertion that federal agencies have ignored established rules governing the handling of US citizen children with parents facing removal. The guidelines state that authorities "must provide" parents "adequate chance" to make determinations concerning the "wellbeing or relocation" of their minor children.

Federal authorities have not yet answered Rosario's legal assertions. The government agency did not address detailed questions about the assertions.

The terminal ordeal

"When we arrived, it was a mostly deserted facility," Rosario stated. "Only deportation vehicles were coming in."

"Several vehicles were present with additional families," she said.

They were confined to the transport at the airport for over four hours, watching other vehicles arrive with men chained at their limbs.

"That portion was traumatic," she said. "My offspring kept inquiring about everyone was chained hand and foot ... if they were criminals. I told them it was just normal protocol."

The plane journey

The family was then forced onto an aircraft, court filings state. At roughly then, according to filings, an immigration field office director eventually responded to Rosario's attorney – informing them a removal halt had been refused. Rosario said she had not provided approval for her two US citizen children to be sent to another country.

Advocates said the scheduling of the apprehension may not have been accidental. They said the check-in – changed multiple times without reason – may have been arranged to match with a removal aircraft to Honduras the following day.

"Officials apparently channel as many detainees as they can toward that facility so they can populate the aircraft and send them out," commented a legal advocate.

The consequences

The entire experience has resulted in irreparable harm, according to the legal action. Rosario still experiences anxiety regarding threats and kidnapping in Honduras.

In a previously released statement, the federal agency stated that Rosario "decided" to bring her children to the required meeting in April, and was questioned about authorities to place the children with someone secure. The organization also asserted that Rosario elected departure with her children.

Ruby, who was unable to complete her educational period in the US, is at risk of "academic regression" and is "undergoing serious emotional difficulties", according to the court documents.

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

"The child's declining condition and the disruption to his treatment have generated for her significant distress and psychological pain," the legal action alleges.

*Names of individuals have been altered.