ST. AMANT — A newspaper is reporting that a St. Amant High School student seeking asylum in the United States was deported to Guatemala last week after attending an immigration hearing with her father.

The Advocate, citing the student and her friends, reported Wednesday that Maria Bolvito, a senior at St. Amant High, was detained by federal agents last week.

“I felt sad,” Bolvito texted to The Advocate from Guatemala. “I didn’t want to leave yet.” Bolvito recently turned 18.

Federal immigration agents say they are targeting "the worst of the worse" for deportation if they are not in the country legally. Bolvito came to the U.S. when she was 10.

“I can tell you she’s not a criminal — she’s just a regular girl who wants to have friends,” a teacher who asked to be unnamed said. “She’s loved by so many people, and she’s so missed.”

Immigration attorney Paul Scott told WBRZ Bolvito should not have been deported.

"The thing is, that the law says that when somebody is applying for asylum, they are allowed to be here. They are authorized to be here while they're applying for asylum. So if she's been here more than two years, in this case, she's been here eight years, there's no reason that she should have been deported from the United States, especially without having seen an immigration judge," Scott said.

Steven Holliday, another immigration attorney, explained to WBRZ what could have led to her being. 

"As a minor, Maria may have been accompanied as a derivative beneficiary or parents' asylum application, but once she turned 18, she may have found herself in a separate asylum application proceeding or might have aged out of being included in her parents' case," Holliday said.

He also says increased enforcement efforts by the federal government, combined with a huge backlog of immigration court cases contributes to situations like this.

Scott says he believes ICE accidentally deported Bolvito; he says he has seen more similar cases.

"It used to be there was a mistake of somebody being removed, deported by mistake once every five years or so, like in my experience in my office, but now it's like you're seeing it a lot in just one year," he said.

He says these could potentially be resulting from government officials moving to deport too many people too fast.

"They are hiring people without proper training, and they are putting more pressure on them to deport as many people as possible, so they are making mistakes," he said. 

WBRZ reached out to the Department of Homeland Security to confirm the deportation and if Bolvito had a hearing in front of an immigration judge, but did not hear back.

The Ascension Parish School System says Maria Bolvito enrolled in their school district in 2019 with all the required documentation. They said due to federal law, the district does not collect or maintain information related to a student’s or family’s citizenship or immigration status.

In a statement sent to WBRZ, they said.

"It is important to stress that Ascension Public Schools remains committed to providing a safe and welcoming learning environment for all students," he said.