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It was a roadway marker that unveiled their end point: Alexandria, Louisiana.

They were transported in the back of an immigration enforcement vehicle – their personal belongings seized and passports retained by authorities. The mother and her two children with citizenship, including a child who faces metastatic kidney disease, remained unaware about where authorities were transporting them.

The apprehension

The household had been detained at an immigration check-in near New Orleans on April 24. When denied access from contacting legal counsel, which they would later claim in court filings violated their rights, the family was moved 200 miles to this rural town in central Louisiana.

"Our location remained undisclosed," the mother explained, responding to questions about her ordeal for the initial occasion after her family's case became public. "They instructed me that I must not seek information, 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 regional airfield in Alexandria that has become a center for extensive immigration enforcement. The site houses a unique detention center that has been referred to as a legal "void" by legal representatives with people held there, and it connects directly onto an runway area.

While the holding center contains solely grown men, confidential information indicate at least 3,142 females and minors have been processed at the Alexandria airport on government charter flights during the initial three months of the current administration. Various detainees, like Rosario, are confined to secret lodging before being deported or relocated to other holding facilities.

Temporary confinement

She was unable to identify which Alexandria hotel her family was directed toward. "I just remember we entered through a vehicle access point, not the main entrance," she stated.

"Our situation resembled prisoners in a room," Rosario said, explaining: "The young ones would try to go toward the door, and the women officers would get mad."

Treatment disruptions

Rosario's four-year-old son Romeo was identified with stage 4 kidney cancer at the age of two, which had spread to his lungs, and was receiving "ongoing and essential medical intervention" at a pediatric medical center in New Orleans before his arrest. His female sibling, Ruby, also a citizen of the United States, was seven when she was detained with her family members.

Rosario "begged" guards at the hotel to grant access to a telephone the night the family was there, she claimed in official complaints. She was eventually permitted one limited communication to her father and informed him she was in Alexandria.

The nighttime investigation

The family was awakened at 2 a.m. the subsequent day, Rosario said, and transported immediately to the airport in a van with another family also confined in the hotel.

Without her knowledge, her legal team and supporters had conducted overnight searches to locate where the two families had been kept, in an bid for legal assistance. But they were not located. The lawyers had made multiple applications to immigration authorities immediately after the apprehension to block the deportation and establish her whereabouts. They had been regularly overlooked, according to court documents.

"The Louisiana location is itself essentially a void," said an immigration advocate, who is handling the case in ongoing litigation. "But in situations involving families, they will frequently avoid bringing to the facility itself, but put them in undisclosed hotel rooms in proximity.

Judicial contentions

At the center of the lawsuit filed on behalf of Rosario and another family is the assertion that government entities have ignored established rules governing the handling of US citizen children with parents under removal proceedings. The policies state that authorities "should afford" parents "adequate chance" to make decisions regarding the "welfare or movement" of their young offspring.

Government agencies have not yet responded to Rosario's legal assertions. The government agency did not address specific inquiries about the claims.

The terminal ordeal

"When we arrived, it was a largely vacant terminal," Rosario recalled. "Just immigration transports were coming in."

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

They were confined to the transport at the airport for an extended period, observing other transports come with men restrained at their hands and feet.

"That experience was distressing," she said. "My offspring kept asking why everyone was chained hand and foot ... if they were criminals. I explained it was just standard procedure."

The flight departure

The family was then forced onto an aircraft, official records state. At roughly then, according to documents, an immigration field office director eventually responded to Rosario's attorney – informing them a deportation delay had been denied. Rosario said she had not provided approval for her two American-born offspring to be sent to another country.

Advocates said the timing of the arrests may not have been accidental. They said the meeting – changed multiple times without explanation – may have been scheduled to align with a transport plane to Honduras the following day.

"They seem to direct as many individuals as they can toward that facility so they can populate the aircraft and send them out," commented a attorney.

The ongoing impact

The complete ordeal has caused irreparable harm, according to the court case. Rosario continues to live with fear of extortion and kidnapping in Honduras.

In a prior announcement, the Department of Homeland Security asserted that Rosario "decided" to bring her children to the required meeting in April, and was asked if she wanted authorities to assign the kids with someone secure. The organization also asserted that Rosario chose to be deported with her children.

Ruby, who was couldn't finish her academic term in the US, is at risk of "educational decline" and is "experiencing significant mental health issues", according to the legal proceedings.

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

"The child's declining condition and the disruption to his treatment have created for the mother significant distress and psychological pain," the court documents state.

*Names of family members have been altered.