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

They were transported in the rear compartment of an immigration enforcement vehicle – their possessions confiscated and travel documents held by agents. The mother and her two American-born children, one of whom is fighting stage 4 kidney cancer, remained unaware about where authorities were directing them.

The detention

The family unit had been taken into custody at an immigration check-in near New Orleans on April 24. After being prevented from consulting their attorney, which they would eventually argue in legal documents violated their rights, the family was relocated 200 miles to this modest settlement in central Louisiana.

"Our location remained undisclosed," she recounted, providing details about her experience for the premier instance after her family's case gained attention. "I was told that I must not seek information, I asked where we were headed, but they offered no answer."

The removal process

The 25-year-old mother, 25, and her two children were compulsorily transported to Honduras in the pre-dawn period the next day, from a rural airport in Alexandria that has become a center for large-scale removal programs. The facility houses a specialized holding facility that has been called a legal "vacuum" by legal representatives with detained individuals, and it leads straight onto an runway area.

While the detention facility holds exclusively grown men, leaked documents indicate at least 3,142 mothers and children have traveled via the Alexandria airport on federal aircraft during the first 100 days of the existing leadership. Certain people, like Rosario, are confined to secret lodging before being removed from the country or moved to other confinement locations.

Lodging restrictions

She was unable to identify which Alexandria hotel her family was taken to. "I just remember we came in 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 female guards would get mad."

Treatment disruptions

Rosario's four-year-old son Romeo was diagnosed with metastatic kidney disease at the age of two, which had reached his lungs, and was receiving "regular and critical medical intervention" at a children's healthcare facility in New Orleans before his arrest. His female sibling, Ruby, also a American national, was seven when she was taken into custody with her relatives.

Rosario "begged" 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 limited communication to her father and notified him she was in Alexandria.

The after-hours locating effort

The family was woken up at 2 a.m. the subsequent day, Rosario said, and taken directly to the airport in a van with additional detainees also detained at the hotel.

Unbeknownst to the mother, her attorneys and representatives had searched throughout the night to locate where the two families had been held, in an effort to secure legal action. But they remained undiscovered. The legal representatives had made multiple applications to immigration authorities immediately after the arrest to stop the transfer and establish her whereabouts. They had been consistently disregarded, according to court documents.

"The Alexandria staging facility is itself already a black hole," said a legal representative, who is handling the case in ongoing litigation. "Yet with cases involving families, they will often not take them to the primary location, but put them in secret lodging near the facility.

Court claims

At the heart of the legal action filed on behalf of Rosario and other individuals is the allegation that government entities have ignored established rules governing the handling of US citizen children with parents subject to deportation. The guidelines state that authorities "must provide" parents "adequate chance" to make decisions regarding the "wellbeing or relocation" of their underage dependents.

Federal authorities have not yet answered Rosario's legal assertions. The federal department did not address specific inquiries about the assertions.

The aviation facility incident

"Upon reaching the location, it was a largely vacant terminal," Rosario remembered. "Exclusively removal vans were arriving."

"Several vehicles were present with other mothers and children," she said.

They were confined to the transport at the airport for over four hours, observing other vehicles arrive with men restrained at their wrists and ankles.

"That portion was upsetting," she said. "The kids kept questioning why everyone was chained hand and foot ... if they were bad people. I told them it was just part of the process."

The plane journey

The family was then compelled to board an aircraft, court filings state. At roughly then, according to documents, an immigration field office director ultimately answered to Rosario's attorney – informing them a stay of removal had been denied. Rosario said she had not consented at any point for her two citizen minors to be removed to Honduras.

Advocates said the date of the detention may not have been accidental. They said the meeting – changed multiple times without explanation – may have been scheduled to align with a deportation flight to Honduras the subsequent day.

"Officials apparently channel as many detainees as they can toward that airport so they can occupy the plane and deport them," stated a representative.

The consequences

The entire experience has resulted in irreparable harm, according to the lawsuit. Rosario persistently faces fear of extortion and abduction in Honduras.

In a previously released statement, the federal agency asserted that Rosario "elected" to bring her children to the required meeting in April, and was inquired whether she preferred authorities to assign the kids with someone protected. The organization also asserted that Rosario chose to be deported 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 mental health issues", according to the legal proceedings.

Romeo, who has now turned five, was unable to access specialized and life-saving healthcare in Honduras. He temporarily visited the US, without his mother, to continue treatment.

"Romeo's deteriorating health and the disruption to his treatment have created for the mother tremendous anxiety and psychological pain," the lawsuit claims.

*Names of individuals have been changed.