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It was a roadway marker that unveiled their final destination: Alexandria, Louisiana.

They were transported in the back of an immigration enforcement vehicle – their possessions seized and identification held by agents. Rosario and her two children with citizenship, including a child who battles advanced renal cancer, had no knowledge about where authorities were transporting them.

The initial encounter

The family members had been taken into custody at an required meeting near New Orleans on April 24. Following restrictions from consulting their attorney, which they would later claim in official complaints breached due process, the family was transported 200 miles to this rural town in the heart of the region.

"They never told me where I was going," Rosario stated, providing details about her situation for the premier instance after her family's case received coverage. "They instructed me that I couldn't ask questions, I questioned our location, but they remained silent."

The deportation procedure

The 25-year-old mother, 25, and her young offspring were involuntarily deported to Honduras in the pre-dawn period the next day, from a rural airport in Alexandria that has transformed into a focal point for extensive immigration enforcement. The site houses a specialized holding facility that has been described as a legal "black hole" by lawyers with detained individuals, and it connects directly onto an flight line.

While the holding center accommodates only grown men, leaked documents indicate at least 3,142 women and children have been processed at the Alexandria airport on government charter flights during the first 100 days of the existing leadership. Some individuals, like Rosario, are detained at secret lodging before being removed from the country or moved to other confinement locations.

Hotel detention

She was unable to identify which Alexandria hotel her family was brought to. "I just remember we came in through a vehicle access point, not the front door," she stated.

"We were treated like prisoners in a room," Rosario said, adding: "The children would attempt to approach the door, and the security personnel would show irritation."

Treatment disruptions

Rosario's four-year-old son Romeo was diagnosed with advanced renal carcinoma at the age of two, which had spread to his lungs, and was receiving "ongoing and essential life-saving cancer treatment" 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 taken into custody with her relatives.

Rosario "pleaded with" guards at the hotel to allow her to use a telephone the night the family was there, she reported in federal court documents. She was eventually permitted one brief phone call to her father and notified him she was in Alexandria.

The nighttime investigation

The family was roused at 2 a.m. the next morning, Rosario said, and brought straight to the airport in a government vehicle with additional detainees also detained at the hotel.

Unknown to Rosario, her legal team and representatives had looked extensively after hours to find where the two families had been kept, in an bid for legal intervention. But they remained undiscovered. The legal representatives had made repeated requests to immigration authorities right after the arrest to block the deportation and establish her whereabouts. They had been consistently disregarded, according to legal filings.

"The Louisiana location is itself fundamentally opaque," said a legal representative, who is handling the case in current legal proceedings. "But in situations involving families, they will frequently avoid bringing to the main center, but put them in unidentified accommodations near the facility.

Judicial contentions

At the core of the litigation filed on behalf of Rosario and another family is the allegation that immigration authorities have ignored established rules governing the treatment of US citizen children with parents subject to deportation. The directives state that authorities "should afford" parents "sufficient time" to make determinations concerning the "care or travel" of their minor children.

Federal authorities have not yet addressed Rosario's allegations legally. The government agency did not respond to comprehensive queries about the assertions.

The terminal ordeal

"When we arrived, it was a largely vacant terminal," Rosario stated. "Exclusively removal vans were arriving."

"There were multiple vans with additional families," she said.

They were confined to the transport at the airport for over four hours, watching other vehicles arrive with men chained at their limbs.

"That experience was distressing," she said. "The kids kept asking why everyone was restrained hand and foot ... if they were bad people. I told them it was just standard procedure."

The flight departure

The family was then made to enter an aircraft, court filings state. At around this period, according to documents, an immigration field office director ultimately answered to Rosario's attorney – notifying them a deportation delay had been denied. Rosario said she had not consented at any point for her two US citizen children to be sent to another country.

Attorneys said the timing of the arrests may not have been accidental. They said the check-in – postponed repeatedly without reason – may have been timed to coincide with a removal aircraft to Honduras the following day.

"Officials apparently channel as many cases as they can toward that facility so they can populate the aircraft and send them out," stated a representative.

The consequences

The entire experience has resulted in lasting consequences, according to the court case. Rosario continues to live with anxiety regarding threats and abduction in Honduras.

In a prior announcement, the federal agency claimed that Rosario "elected" to bring her children to the required meeting in April, and was asked if she wanted authorities to place the children with someone safe. The agency also claimed that Rosario elected departure with her children.

Ruby, who was didn't complete her school year in the US, is at risk of "academic regression" and is "undergoing serious mental health issues", according to the legal proceedings.

Romeo, who has now turned five, was unable to access vital and necessary medical care in Honduras. He made a short trip to the US, without his mother, to proceed with therapy.

"The child's declining condition and the halt in his therapy have caused Rosario substantial worry and psychological pain," the lawsuit claims.

*Names of family members have been changed.