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They discovered their location through a highway exit sign that disclosed their final destination: Alexandria, Louisiana.

They were transported in the rear compartment of an immigration enforcement vehicle – their items taken and travel documents not returned. Rosario and her US citizen offspring, one of whom faces metastatic kidney disease, had no knowledge about where authorities were transporting them.

The apprehension

The family unit had been taken into custody at an required meeting near New Orleans on April 24. When denied access from speaking with their lawyer, which they would later claim in official complaints ignored legal protections, the family was transported 200 miles to this rural town in the heart of the region.

"I received no information about our destination," Rosario stated, providing details about her ordeal for the premier instance after her family's case gained attention. "I was told that I couldn't ask questions, I questioned our location, but they didn't respond."

The removal process

The 25-year-old mother, 25, and her young offspring were forcibly removed to Honduras in the early morning hours the next day, from a rural airport in Alexandria that has become a center for mass deportation operations. The site houses a distinctive confinement area that has been called a legal "void" by attorneys with detained individuals, and it opens immediately onto an runway area.

While the detention facility contains solely male adults, leaked documents indicate at least 3,142 women and children have traveled via the Alexandria airport on immigration transports during the opening period of the current administration. Certain people, like Rosario, are held in unidentified accommodations before being removed from the country or transferred to other holding facilities.

Temporary confinement

Rosario could not recall which Alexandria hotel her family was brought to. "I recall we came in through a parking area, not the front door," she stated.

"We were treated like prisoners in a room," Rosario said, adding: "My kids would attempt to approach the door, and the security personnel would become angry."

Treatment disruptions

Rosario's four-year-old son Romeo was found to have metastatic kidney disease at the age of two, which had metastasized to his lungs, and was receiving "ongoing and essential cancer care" at a specialized children's hospital in New Orleans before his arrest. His sister, Ruby, also a American national, was seven when she was taken into custody with her mother and brother.

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 eventually permitted one brief phone call to her father and informed him she was in Alexandria.

The overnight search

The family was roused at 2 a.m. the following morning, Rosario said, and transported immediately to the airport in a van with additional detainees also detained at the hotel.

Without her knowledge, her attorneys and advocates had conducted overnight searches to find where the two families had been detained, in an attempt to obtain legal intervention. But they were not located. The attorneys had made numerous petitions to immigration authorities right after the apprehension to stop the transfer and find her position. They had been regularly overlooked, according to official records.

"This processing center is itself fundamentally opaque," said a legal representative, who is handling the case in ongoing litigation. "But in situations involving families, they will frequently avoid bringing to the primary location, but place them in undisclosed hotel rooms in proximity.

Judicial contentions

At the center of the lawsuit filed on behalf of Rosario and other individuals is the allegation that government entities have breached internal policies governing the treatment of US citizen children with parents subject to deportation. The directives state that authorities "must provide" parents "adequate chance" to make choices about the "wellbeing or relocation" of their young offspring.

Federal authorities have not yet responded to Rosario's allegations legally. The federal department did not answer comprehensive queries about the claims.

The airport experience

"Once we got there, it was a largely vacant terminal," Rosario stated. "Just immigration transports were pulling up."

"There were multiple vans with more detainees," she said.

They were kept in the van at the airport for four and a half hours, seeing other transports come with men restrained at their wrists and ankles.

"That experience was upsetting," she said. "The kids kept questioning why everyone was shackled hand and foot ... if they were criminals. I explained it was just normal protocol."

The flight departure

The family was then compelled to board an aircraft, court filings state. At around this period, according to documents, an immigration regional supervisor finally replied to Rosario's attorney – informing them a deportation delay had been rejected. Rosario said she had not agreed ever for her two US citizen children to be sent to another country.

Attorneys said the date of the detention may not have been accidental. They said the check-in – rescheduled three times without reason – may have been arranged to match with a removal aircraft to Honduras the next day.

"Authorities appear to funnel as many cases as they can toward that facility so they can occupy the plane and deport them," stated a legal advocate.

The ongoing impact

The whole situation has caused lasting consequences, according to the court case. Rosario persistently faces anxiety regarding threats and abduction in Honduras.

In a previously released statement, the federal agency claimed that Rosario "elected" to bring her children to the federal appointment in April, and was questioned about authorities to assign the kids with someone safe. The agency also claimed that Rosario chose to be deported with her children.

Ruby, who was unable to complete her school year in the US, is at risk of "learning setbacks" and is "facing substantial psychological challenges", according to the legal proceedings.

Romeo, who has now reached five years, was denied critical and essential healthcare in Honduras. He temporarily visited the US, without his mother, to proceed with therapy.

"The child's declining condition and the disruption to his treatment have caused Rosario substantial worry and emotional turmoil," the court documents state.

*Names of people involved have been altered.