Allana Rambharose was once handcuffed and deported to her native Guyana — even though she’d been living in New York since age 4 — and faces uncertain future because she aged her out of her family’s visa bid. A lawsuit now before the US Supreme Court could change things for her and other children of immigrants.

Most of Baruch College student Allana Rambharose's Guyanese immigrant family — her parents, brother, grandparents and many aunts and uncles — are either already or on track to become U.S. citizens.

But because she turned 21 at exactly the wrong time, and because the U.S. legal immigration system can move at a glacial pace, Rambharose is stuck in limbo.

"It still doesn't make sense," said Rambharose, who is now 23 and first moved to Queens Village when she was four. "I feel like I am being punished."

The U.S. Supreme Court is now weighing a lawsuit, Mayorkas v. Cuellar de Osorio, that may change things for immigrants like Rambharose, who "age out" of family visa bids. The class action is named for a Salvadoran mom who had to leave her son behind because he turned 21 during the seven years the family waited for visas.

Once children turn 21, they are no longer considered under their parents' status and must go through a new petition process.

Because the U.S. only gives a set number of family green cards per country each year, approved visas can take decades to actually be issued.

Congress created the Child Status Protection Act in 2002 to help kids who age out due to backlogs. But courts have been divided on whether the act applies to everyone, or just those whose parent applied for them — leaving out bids by grandparents like in Rambharose's case, by aunts and uncles, or by a parent’s employer.

The government has maintained a narrow interpretation of the law, but legislators including John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) say they intended it to be broad.

After she became too old to be a part of the family's original bid, Allana Rambharose's dad put in a new immigration petition for her — but unless the U.S. Supreme Court decides she can keep her original spot in line, she faces an uncertain wait of at least six years.

"We think that the wider group of aged-out children are entitled to this benefit," said Mary Kenney, senior attorney at American Immigration Council. "It makes a big difference for a lot of people."

Rambharose, whose U.S. citizen grandma put in a bid for her family in the 1990s, is hoping the high court takes a generous view. "This is the only option I have right now," she said.

Other aged-out young people from countries like Mexico and the Philippines face waits of 30 to 100 years. That wait could shrink or even disappear, depending on what the justices decide.

As the Rambharoses waited for the family's green card bid to make its way through a backlog, they ended up overstaying their tourist visas. Federal officials moved to deport them — but let her mom stay in Queens with her 17-year-old U.S. citizen brother. In June 2010, Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained her dad and deported him.

Two weeks later, Rambharose went to an early morning summer session psychology class at Baruch and then headed with her mom to what she hoped was a routine appointment with immigration officials at 26 Federal Plaza. Instead, she left the building in handcuffs.

"The officer was just like, 'We're keeping your daughter.'" Rambharose said. "I was in tears the entire time, just crying when they were taking my fingerprints."

Late that night, she walked through Kennedy Airport with her hands cuffed in front of her. Most of her family showed up at the terminal to hug her goodbye.

"I was 19 years old, and I had no idea where I was going," said Rambharose, who barely remembered Guyana. "It was very scary."

She ended up spending nearly two years there, getting a job at a Georgetown auditing firm and making one close friend but missing New York terribly.

Her dad was able to reactivate the family's green card bid and returned to the United States. But because U.S. embassy officials scheduled his interview for two weeks after Rambharose's 21st birthday, she was left out. Her dad unsuccessfully begged embassy officials to move up the date.

"That left me with no options," she said. "Everything was just negative after negative. It was hard."

Ultimately, Rambharose was able to return to the United States for humanitarian reasons in the spring of 2012 — her psoriatic arthritis flared up in Guyana and went untreated since she couldn't find the right medicine.

Her lawyer, Jeffrey E. Baron, said federal officials granted her return in an "act of extreme discretion and kindness." However, she is now in the country on humanitarian parole, which needs to be renewed each year.

"Her status is up in the air," he said.

Now she's back at Baruch, finishing up her last semester and majoring in finance. She's still hoping to join the rest of her family by getting her green card.

"This made me stronger in a way, but there's still no option for me to get my residency or my citizenship," she said. "That's what I really want, because I've lived here my entire life."