NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - After graduating from LSU's nursing school in May, Vilma Palacios was ready to achieve her American dream of working in health care, with a two-year position already lined up at Touro Hospital starting this summer.
But days before the 21-year-old was supposed to begin work at the medical center, she was arrested by immigration officers, sent to a migrant detention facility and is now on the verge of being deported to a country she hardly remembers.
Palacios is currently housed at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, about three hours away from her family on the West Bank of the New Orleans metro area.
Since she was detained in June, her only regular communication with family has been through the phone lines available to detainees at the facility.
FOX 8 was able to speak with her that way, as she shared how she ended up in immigration custody.
Palacios says she was in the process of renewing her brake tag in South Louisiana when a Louisiana State Trooper ran her identification. She said the trooper found an issue with her immigration status and told her that immigration agents had been alerted.
She said that when the immigration officers arrived, she asked for a reason for the arrest and to see a warrant. She says the agents did not show her any documentation but told her that her immigration case -- which Palacios believed was administratively closed -- had been put back on the court docket, and she had missed her hearing.
Palacios said neither she nor her lawyer was notified of the update to her case. Still, the agents handcuffed her, shackled her legs and transported her first to the Hancock County Correctional Facility in Mississippi, then to the ICE facility in Basile.
"Your life does like a full 360 where one minute you're outside and the next minute they take away everything from you -- all your freedom," Palacios said.
When she was 7 years old, Palacios and her parents fled their town in Honduras after her uncle was killed in front of the family's home.
They crossed the U.S. border near McAllen, Texas, on April 26, 2010. From there, the family sought asylum, citing fears about a spike in gang violence in their home country.
Asylum paperwork was officially filed for Palacios in 2011, when the family lived in California. Over the next 14 years, she waited patiently for progress in her effort to remain in the United States legally.
During that time, the family relocated to Louisiana, where Palacios excelled in school, especially at Belle Chasse High. She received multiple work permits and was awaiting approval for her third before her immigration arrest this spring.
For the past six months, Palacios has awaited a hearing before an immigration judge to request bond related to her arrest.
But on Monday, Dec. 15, a judge ruled she was ineligible for bond and gave her two options: agree to voluntary deportation or be forcibly removed to Honduras.
Palacios says she chose to take a return flight to Honduras, despite her fears about returning to a country she barely knows.
"All I know is how corrupt everything is and the crime that's constantly happening," she said.
In a statement, ICE New Orleans said Palacios has been in the U.S. illegally for the past 15 years and that "her family declined to find a way for her to obtain legal status."
Palacios disputes those claims, citing her parents' asylum application and their decade-long wait for approval.
"It's like there not taking anything into consideration," she said.
Over the past six months, Palacios says she has been detained alongside a wide range of people in similar situations. She said she met others who missed check-in appointments, filed documents incorrectly or were simply waiting for their cases to proceed through the immigration system.
"The only crime the you can say we committed is that we entered the country illegally. Knowing that is frustrating because in here you feel powerless and hopeless," she said.
Despite her fight to stay in the U.S., an immigration judge ordered Palacios to be deported before Jan. 14.
She hopes that, because she has no criminal record, she will one day return to pursue her dreams in the place she calls home.
"I want to return to this country as soon as possible to create a future here," she said.