Was Lucia Lopez Belloza a US citizen?

1. How authorities characterized López Belloza: treated as removable, not a citizen

Multiple federal officials and DHS spokespeople publicly described López Belloza as subject to removal and referred to her status in terms used for noncitizens; a DHS spokesperson said she “entered the country in 2014” and was “an illegal alien” and ICE has said an immigration judge ordered her removal in 2015 ^{[3] [4]}. The government defended her removal in court, with prosecutors arguing jurisdictional limits after she had been flown to Texas and ultimately to Honduras, which aligns with agency practices applied to noncitizens rather than U.S. citizens ^{[6] [2] [1]}.

2. The family and lawyer: insistence she belongs in the U.S., but not claiming citizenship

López Belloza’s attorney, Todd Pomerleau, has framed the case around due process and wrongful removal—arguing she should be brought back to the U.S. to pursue hearings and pointing to the absence or ambiguity of any valid removal order—but reporting cites him seeking to secure her return on a student visa or by filing a green card application rather than asserting U.S. citizenship ^{[7] [5] [8]}. That legal strategy and public statements are consistent with advocacy for a noncitizen client rather than the defense of a citizen’s rights.

3. Court records and emergency orders show a fight over removal, not citizenship status

After López Belloza’s detention on Nov. 20, a federal judge issued an emergency order barring her removal or transfer from Massachusetts for 72 hours, yet she was flown out before that order could be enforced, prompting government apologies and court proceedings over the mistake and jurisdiction—not a dispute over a claimed citizenship certificate or passport ^{[1] [2] [6]}. Reuters and AP reporting describes the litigation as focused on whether the court retained jurisdiction and on alleged violations of the emergency order, again signaling the central issue was removal procedure ^{[9] [1]}.

4. Conflicting official claims and gaps in the record: removal order versus attorney’s inability to find it

ICE and DHS have pointed to a 2015 immigration-judge removal order as the basis for action, while López Belloza’s lawyer says he cannot find a record of that order and that the deportation violated the emergency federal court order issued after her arrest ^{[4] [8]}. Reporting documents these competing claims but does not present independent court-docket evidence proving the 2015 order’s terms or existence; therefore the public record assembled here shows a factual disagreement about the provenance of the removal authority rather than any assertion of U.S. citizenship ^{[8] [4]}.

5. What the available reporting does not show—and why that matters

None of the provided sources says López Belloza held U.S. citizenship or presented a U.S. passport; instead coverage consistently describes her as a student brought to the U.S. from Honduras as a child, detained under an asserted removal order, and deported to Honduras—facts that support the conclusion she was treated as a noncitizen ^{[9] [3] [1]}. The reporting does not include verifiable immigration-files or naturalization documents in the public record assembled here, so it cannot categorically prove the absence of any citizenship claim beyond the government and press characterizations ^{[8] [4]}.

6. Bottom line: evidence supports that she was not a U.S. citizen in these proceedings

Given that DHS, ICE and court filings all framed López Belloza’s situation in terms of removal, that her lawyer pursued remedies consistent with noncitizen status (visa or green-card pathways), and that coverage quotes agency officials calling her subject to removal, the assembled reporting supports the conclusion that López Belloza was not treated as a U.S. citizen—and no source here documents that she was one ^{[3] [5] [2]}. The record instead reflects a contested removal history and a legal dispute over whether the government violated a court order when it sent her to Honduras ^{[2] [1]}.