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

They were transported in the cargo area of an immigration enforcement vehicle – their possessions confiscated and travel documents retained by authorities. The mother and her US citizen offspring, including a child who battles metastatic kidney disease, lacked information about where authorities were taking them.

The apprehension

The family members had been taken into custody at an required meeting near New Orleans on April 24. After being prevented from speaking with their lawyer, which they would later claim in legal documents breached due process, the family was relocated 200 miles to this small community in the heart of the region.

"They never told me where I was going," the mother explained, providing details about her experience for the initial occasion after her family's case became public. "Authorities directed that I couldn't ask questions, I inquired about our destination, but they didn't respond."

The deportation procedure

Rosario, 25, and her minor children were forcibly removed to Honduras in the pre-dawn period the subsequent morning, from a small aviation facility in Alexandria that has emerged as a hub for extensive immigration enforcement. The location houses a unique detention center that has been described as a legal "void" by lawyers with clients inside, and it connects directly onto an flight line.

While the holding center contains solely grown men, obtained records 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 present government. Various detainees, like Rosario, are detained at unidentified accommodations before being sent abroad or moved to other holding facilities.

Hotel detention

Rosario could not recall which Alexandria hotel her family was brought to. "I just remember we accessed via a parking area, not the main entrance," she recalled.

"Our situation resembled detainees in lodging," Rosario said, adding: "The children would move closer to the door, and the security personnel would show irritation."

Treatment disruptions

The mother's four-year-old son Romeo was diagnosed with metastatic kidney disease at the age of two, which had spread to his lungs, and was receiving "ongoing and essential cancer care" at a children's healthcare facility in New Orleans before his detention by authorities. 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 claimed in legal filings. She was ultimately granted one brief phone call to her father and informed him she was in Alexandria.

The overnight search

The family was awakened at 2 a.m. the next morning, Rosario said, and transported immediately to the airport in a transport vehicle with another family also held at the hotel.

Unknown to Rosario, her lawyers and advocates had conducted overnight searches to locate where the two families had been held, in an effort to secure legal action. But they were not located. The legal representatives had made multiple applications to immigration authorities right after the arrest to prevent removal and determine her location. They had been consistently disregarded, according to court documents.

"This processing center is itself essentially a void," said an expert, who is handling the case in current legal proceedings. "But in situations involving families, they will often not take them to the main center, but put them in unidentified accommodations close by.

Court claims

At the core of the litigation filed on behalf of Rosario and other individuals is the assertion that federal agencies have ignored established rules governing the care for US citizen children with parents facing removal. The policies state that authorities "are required to grant" parents "sufficient time" to make determinations concerning the "wellbeing or relocation" of their minor children.

Immigration officials have not yet addressed Rosario's allegations legally. The government agency did not address detailed questions about the allegations.

The airport experience

"Upon reaching the location, it was a mostly deserted facility," Rosario remembered. "Just immigration transports were arriving."

"Several vehicles were present with additional families," she said.

They were kept in the van at the airport for over four hours, observing other vehicles arrive with men restrained at their limbs.

"That experience was upsetting," she said. "The kids kept questioning why everyone was restrained hand and foot ... if they were wrongdoers. I said it was just part of the process."

The plane journey

The family was then made to enter an aircraft, court filings state. At approximately this time, according to filings, an immigration local official ultimately answered to Rosario's attorney – informing them a removal halt had been rejected. Rosario said she had not agreed ever for her two American-born offspring to be sent to another country.

Legal representatives said the date of the detention may not have been random. They said the appointment – changed multiple times without justification – may have been arranged to match with a transport plane to Honduras the following day.

"Officials apparently channel as many individuals as they can toward that airport so they can fill the flight and remove them," stated a legal advocate.

The consequences

The whole situation has caused irreparable harm, according to the lawsuit. Rosario continues to live with fear of extortion and kidnapping in Honduras.

In a previously released statement, the Department of Homeland Security asserted that Rosario "chose" to bring her children to the federal appointment in April, and was questioned about authorities to assign the kids with someone secure. The organization also claimed that Rosario decided on removal with her children.

Ruby, who was didn't complete her academic term in the US, is at risk of "academic regression" and is "undergoing serious emotional difficulties", according to the litigation.

Romeo, who has now reached five years, was unable to access critical and essential medical care in Honduras. He temporarily visited the US, without his mother, to continue treatment.

"The boy's worsening medical status and the interruption of his care have caused Rosario substantial worry and emotional turmoil," the legal action alleges.

*Names of individuals have been modified.