The Babson College freshman who was abruptly deported before Thanksgiving is now calling on the Trump administration to allow her to return to the United States so she can resume her studies and reunite with her family.

Her deportation gained even wider notoriety this week after government lawyers acknowledged to a federal judge in Boston that she was mistakenly deported despite a court order forbidding her removal. The student, Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, was heartened when she heard of the government’s apology, she said in an interview with the Globe.

“It makes me feel that there’s still hope,’’ Lopez Belloza, 19, said on Thursday in a phone call from Honduras, where she is now living with her grandparents.

Though Lopez Belloza said she accepts the government’s apology, she has conflicting emotions.

“It also makes me kind of mad, because it’s like, wow — because of your mistake, my life completely changed," she said. “I got deported. And by a mistake — it’s crazy.’’

Meanwhile on Friday, the federal judge in her case, Richard G. Stearns, suggested the “simplest solution’’ would be for the State Department to grant Lopez Belloza a non-immigrant student visa to return and complete her studies in-person at Babson while her immigration case plays out in the courts. In an order, Stearns directed the Department of Justice to convey his proposal to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

“The United States, to its credit, apologized to Any and the court at a January 13, 2026 hearing for what it agrees was a tragic (and preventable) mistake,’’ Stearns wrote in an order on Friday. “There is happily no one-size-fits-all solution for seeing that justice be done in what all agree was an amalgam of errors that ended badly for Any.’’

In November, Lopez Belloza was at Logan Airport en route to her family’s home in Austin, Texas, to surprise her parents for Thanksgiving when she was whisked away by immigration officials.

She was shuffled through multiple locations in handcuffs and shackles, giving her few chances to contact her family, she said. At the time, her attorney, Todd Pomerleau, had filed for her release in Massachusetts, and a federal judge in Boston ordered the administration not to move her out of state or deport her.

But by then, she had already been transferred to Texas. And within about two days of her arrest, she was deported to Honduras, a country she had not been to since she was a child.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement previously told the Globe in a statement that years ago an immigration judge had ordered Lopez Belloza deported after she “unlawfully entered the United States from Mexico.’’

Lopez Belloza entered the US with her mother in 2014 when she was around 8, according to court filings. A judge denied Lopez Belloza and her mother’s asylum application, and a removal order was issued against her in 2017.

Lopez Belloza says she was unaware of the deportation order against her.

Stearns took note of her age at the time, writing in a footnote to his decision Friday that he “seriously doubts that an eleven-year-old child would have known of the order, or that, if she did, she would have understood its ramifications.’’

Stearns requested the government respond to his student visa recommendation within 21 days. He also noted that any findings of civil or criminal contempt for deporting her in violation of a court order should “be deployed sparingly.’’

“At this moment in time, there is nothing for the court to coerce, as it would prefer to give the government an opportunity to rectify the mistake it acknowledges having made in Any’s case before contemplating the issuance of any further order,’’ Stearns wrote.

Despite the admission from the administration’s lawyers in court that the government violated a federal judge’s order, a spokesperson for DHS said in a statement Friday “there was no ‘mistake.’ ’’

“The court order to stop her removal was issued AFTER she was already removed,’’ said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “She received full due process including a final order of removal from a judge.’’

DHS did not respond to a question about whether the government is considering allowing Lopez Belloza to return to the US.

The State Department did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

The past two months have been difficult for Lopez Belloza as she adjusts to life at her grandparents’ home in San Pedro Sula. She has gone through bouts of anxiety and depression, she said, particularly around Christmas and New Year’s, holidays she previously spent with her parents and siblings.

“Those days really hit me,’’ she said.

“At the beginning, it was so hard to even just go to sleep,’’ Lopez Belloza said. “I try to make my mind busy, just because lately I’ve been feeling so down.’’

She spends her days trying to stay occupied, but thinks constantly about seeing her parents and two young sisters and returning to her life on campus in Massachusetts. She was granted a full scholarship to attend Babson beginning in the fall of 2025, and said she worked hard to get into the school.

Lopez Belloza misses spending time with her roommate, grabbing pizza at Sal’s (the new pizza spot on campus), and library study sessions that invariably turned into her favorite hangouts with close friends.

“I just want to be back at Babson, that’s the dream that I want,’’ Lopez Belloza said. “I just want to be back at my dorm, with my roommate, my friends.’’

Despite her deportation, Lopez Belloza has not stopped studying, completing her assignments remotely, though it’s harder to focus from afar, she said. She is striving to become the first in her family to graduate from college. She has ambitions to open her own business, and help her father, who is a tailor, run his own shop.

“I’ve always been in that kind of mindset that if I can help you, I will. And that’s the reason why I decided to [study] business,’’ Lopez Belloza said.

Lopez Belloza’s family has been devastated, she said. After she and her father spoke out about her deportation, including in interviews with the Globe, her family in Austin was targeted by ICE, Pomerleau and Lopez Belloza said. I

In December, agents staked out her family home, even bolting toward her father while he was outside and going into the family’s backyard, according to her attorney.

When her family called her about what happened, Lopez Belloza said she “couldn’t stop crying.’’

“It turned into an even worse nightmare,’’ Lopez Belloza told the Globe. “I never thought that this would have happened to my parents.’’

Now, her family in Austin is hunkered down at home, in fear of being arrested if they step outside. Community members help bring her sister, who is 5, to school.

On Friday, Pomerleau asked the judge to order the government to “file a detailed action plan’’ within 14 days, identifying the steps it will take to facilitate Lopez Belloza’s return. He requested the government include specific timelines and written status updates moving forward.

“They’re saying they made a mistake, and they can fix it — bring her back," Pomerleau told the Globe. “She should never have been placed in handcuffs.’’

But if the government only offers “generalities’’ regarding how it will remedy the situation, Pomerleau wrote in his court filing, “then the Government’s apology will have been shown to be empty’’ and Stearns should consider other measures, “including civil contempt or other sanctions as warranted.’’

Pomerleau said he helped the family recently apply for a visa that could eventually lead to a green card, which could permit Lopez Belloza’s reentry into the country if DHS authorizes it.

“Respectfully, they should just be backing down,’’ Pomerleau said of the pressure on Lopez Belloza’s family in Austin. “There’s an application pending . . . for her, her mom and her dad, that puts them on the track to having the status they all need and deserve.’’

The whole family has been praying the situation will be rectified soon, Belloza Lopez said.

“It’s taking a long time for me to go back home,’’ she said. “We still believe that, hopefully, with this apology, we’re able to work things out, and I’m able to return back to the life that I had.’’

Tonya Alanez and Sean Cotter of the Globe staff contributed to this report.