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They discovered their location through a interstate indicator that disclosed their ultimate location: Alexandria, Louisiana.

Their journey continued in the cargo area of an immigration enforcement vehicle – their personal belongings confiscated and identification retained by authorities. The mother and her US citizen offspring, including a child who is fighting metastatic kidney disease, lacked information about where federal agents were taking them.

The initial encounter

The family unit had been detained at an immigration check-in near New Orleans on April 24. Following restrictions from speaking with their lawyer, which they would subsequently allege in legal documents violated their rights, the family was transported 200 miles to this modest settlement in the heart of the region.

"Our location remained undisclosed," Rosario stated, providing details about her experience for the initial occasion after her family's case received coverage. "They instructed me that I couldn't ask questions, I questioned our location, but they didn't respond."

The deportation procedure

The 25-year-old mother, 25, and her two children were compulsorily transported to Honduras in the pre-dawn period the following day, from a small aviation facility in Alexandria that has emerged as a hub for extensive immigration enforcement. The facility houses a specialized holding facility that has been described as a legal "vacuum" by lawyers with detained individuals, and it connects directly onto an airport tarmac.

While the detention facility accommodates only adult male detainees, confidential information indicate at least 3,142 mothers and children have passed through the Alexandria airport on federal aircraft during the first 100 days of the current administration. Certain people, like Rosario, are confined to secret lodging before being deported or moved to other holding facilities.

Lodging restrictions

She was unable to identify which Alexandria hotel her family was directed toward. "I recall we came in through a vehicle access point, not the primary access," she stated.

"Our situation resembled prisoners in a room," Rosario said, explaining: "My kids would attempt to approach the door, and the women officers would get mad."

Treatment disruptions

The mother's child Romeo was found to have advanced renal carcinoma at the age of two, which had spread to his lungs, and was receiving "consistent and vital medical intervention" at a specialized children's hospital in New Orleans before his arrest. His female sibling, Ruby, also a citizen of the United States, was seven when she was apprehended with her family members.

Rosario "pleaded with" guards at the hotel to grant access to a telephone the night the family was there, she stated in legal filings. She was finally allowed one brief phone call 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 transported immediately to the airport in a van with another family also held at the hotel.

Without her knowledge, her legal team and representatives had looked extensively after hours to identify where the two families had been kept, in an attempt to obtain legal assistance. But they remained undiscovered. The attorneys had made repeated requests to immigration authorities right after the arrest to stop the transfer and establish her whereabouts. They had been regularly overlooked, according to legal filings.

"This processing center is itself already a black hole," said a legal representative, who is providing legal counsel in ongoing litigation. "Yet with cases involving families, they will frequently avoid bringing to the primary location, but accommodate them at secret lodging in proximity.

Judicial contentions

At the heart of the legal action filed on behalf of Rosario and other individuals is the claim that immigration authorities have violated their own regulations governing the handling of US citizen children with parents subject to deportation. The directives state that authorities "must provide" parents "sufficient time" to make decisions regarding the "welfare or movement" of their young offspring.

Government agencies have not yet answered Rosario's claims in court. The Department of Homeland Security did not address detailed questions about the claims.

The terminal ordeal

"When we arrived, it was a largely vacant terminal," Rosario remembered. "Exclusively removal vans were arriving."

"Numerous transports appeared with other mothers and children," she said.

They were confined to the transport at the airport for an extended period, seeing other vans approach with men shackled at their limbs.

"That experience was distressing," she said. "The kids kept inquiring about everyone was restrained hand and foot ... if they were bad people. I explained it was just part of the process."

The flight departure

The family was then made to enter an aircraft, official records state. At around this period, according to documents, an immigration local official eventually responded to Rosario's attorney – informing them a removal halt had been rejected. Rosario said she had not provided approval for her two US citizen children to be deported abroad.

Attorneys said the timing of the arrests may not have been coincidental. They said the check-in – changed multiple times without reason – may have been timed to coincide with a removal aircraft to Honduras the following day.

"They seem to direct as many cases as they can toward that airport so they can populate the aircraft and deport them," explained a representative.

The consequences

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

In a previously released statement, the government department stated that Rosario "decided" to bring her children to the immigration check-in in April, and was inquired whether she preferred authorities to place the children with someone safe. The agency also asserted that Rosario decided on removal with her children.

Ruby, who was couldn't finish her school year in the US, is at risk of "educational decline" and is "facing substantial emotional difficulties", according to the court documents.

Romeo, who has now become five years old, was unable to access vital and necessary healthcare in Honduras. He temporarily visited the US, without his mother, to resume care.

"Romeo's deteriorating health and the disruption to his treatment have generated for her tremendous anxiety and mental suffering," the legal action alleges.

*Names of individuals have been modified.