Precis

In a world TV exclusive, Sarah Ferguson reports on the fallout of a brutal US immigration policy that tore families apart. She tracks the journey of one mother seeking to reunite with her children after four painful years alone.

"I begged them to please not take my mum. I told them that it would be better if they deported us to Mexico instead of separating her from me, but they told me...that I had to say goodbye."

It was condemned as cruel and inhumane. But before the US courts struck it down, Trump's policy of separating children from their parents at the US-Mexico border did its work. Over 5000 children were removed. While many children stayed in the US, hundreds of parents were deported.

Four years later, some families are finding each other again.

In a Foreign Correspondent exclusive, Sarah Ferguson tells the powerful story of the first family to reunite since President Biden took office.

The family of Honduran mother Keldy Gonzales Brebe was one of the first to be caught up in a secretive US immigration program run in 2017. Its aim was to deter would-be migrants by separating parents from children.

When Keldy crossed the US border into New Mexico in 2017, immigration officials separated her from her two sons, aged 13 and 15.

"They told us they were going to separate us from her, that they were going to take us to a juvenile detention centre. I begged the immigration officers to let us go with her, but they said...I had to be separated from her," says Keldy's son Mino, now 19.

"From there I lost so many things from not seeing my children. I lost seeing their adolescence. I couldn't be with them for four years," Keldy tells Foreign Correspondent.

For four years, Keldy marked time in Mexico. Then, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), she received the news she'd been waiting for.

We follow Keldy from Mexico to Philadelphia, where her children now live, for the unforgettable scenes of mother and child reunion.

We follow her story to Honduras to understand why she fled her home country, meet her family and friends on the Caribbean Coast and see first-hand the brutal violence that drove her to leave.

After organising the execution of her brother, the notorious Honduran gang MS-13 threatened to kill Keldy too.

We speak to lawyer Lee Gelernt from the ACLU who fought Trump's immigration policy in the courts and is now helping to bring families back together.

"I wanted to be here to see this first reunification," says Gelernt. "I think you can't really understand until you see it."

Keldy at Philadelphia airport

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: A tearful mother arrives at Philadelphia airport. Keldy Gonzales Brebe hasn’t seen her children for nearly four years. They were taken from her at the US border in 2017, victims of Donald Trump’s family separation policy. 

00:00

Keldy in car

KELDY:   "I’ve always told you. I had faith that I was going to be here with my children."

DRIVER: "Yes, you've always said that."

00:25

Keldy into home greets family, hugging sons, crying

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: Now a new US government is trying to put more than a thousand separated families back together. Keldy is one of the first parents they’ve brought back to America.

KELDY:  "I want to say to my children that I love you!"

00:37

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: This is the rarest thing in my experience as a journalist, a truly happy ending.

KELDY:  "I love you my beautiful boy. I love you. I’m here my darling."

01:28

Sarah hugs Keldy

SARAH: "I’m so happy for you. Congratulations. You are home."

01:42

Family reunion

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter:  I’m beginning Keldy’s story at the end, so that you know their ordeal is over

01:51

Lee watches reunification

LEE GELERNT: I wanted to be here to see this first reunification. I don’t know how many I'll be able to get to of the thousand we’re trying to get back.  You know, I've been doing this work for 30 years at the ACLU. This is, by far, the worst immigration practise I have ever seen and by a long shot.

02:01

Border wall

02:26

Title: ROAD TO REUNION

02:36

Map, Mexico showing Ciudad Juarez

02:41

Ciudad Juarez GVs

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02:48

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: The border city of Ciudad Juarez is an unlikely place to seek refuge from violence. Whole neighbourhoods lie abandoned after residents fled during the savage cartel wars of the past 15 years. In late April, we found Keldy living here in a single room.

02:59

Keldy sitting on bed, talking with sons

Her bible open, her luggage ready, waiting, living through her phone.

KELDY: "How are you my precious boys?"

SON: "Good, and you?"

KELDY: "Good, good."

03:40

KELDY:  I've been crying at night for a long time in pain and nearly screaming to hug my children. 

03:56

Keldy in car with Anna, to dentist

Four years are four years. It’s been four years of praying to be able to see my children again.

04:08

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: Her friend Anna is driving Keldy to the dentist. Given hope by the change of government in the US she’s preparing for the possibility of reunion. She made this appointment to have her teeth cleaned. 

04:26

KELDY: I left my country in search of protection, and when we say protection it’s like when a person is sick and looks for medicine, but instead of finding medicine, finds more pain.

04:46

Keldy in kitchen

More pain, that’s what I felt. When they tore me away from my children I felt like they killed me.

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter:  During these years, Keldy had a powerful ally in the US.

05:08

ACLU rally

CHANT:  "A-C-L-U… We are here because of you."

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: …the American Civil Liberties Union.

05:20

LEE:  "The judge, in a nutshell…"

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: And its immigration lawyer, Lee Gelernt.

LEE:  "…President could not override the courts."

05:33

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: He led the legal challenges against the Trump family separation policy which swept up Keldy and her children.

05:41

Lee in car

LEE GELERNT:   She is one of the first cases that were documented, and we now know that more than 5500 children were separated,

05:48

Lee 100%

hundreds of whom were just babies and toddlers. We also now know that the Trump administration had asked about budgeting for possibly 26,000 children to be separated.

05:58

Border wall

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: Migration over the Mexican border was Donald Trump’s most potent issue.

06:09

TRUMP:  "Ice is throwing them out of our country by the thousands.

06:19

Trump at NRA convention

"I am afraid for my life. I am afraid to go back to my country. I want to be an American." We don’t want them in our country. And they’re not getting into our country.  And when they have got in to our country we’re throwing them the hell out. They're out.

06:23

Border wall

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter:  We now know, that from his first days in office, Trump had advisors working on a secret plan to separate families at the border.

LEE GELERNT:  You know we're still trying to figure out how early the Trump administration

06:42

Lee 100%

was planning to take children away. We know that by six months they had already had a pilot program up and running. We're still trying to find out whether right away when he took office, he was taking children away, which means that they planned it even before he came into office.

06:55

Keldy broadcasts sermon online from her room

KELDY: "Glory to god, hallelujah, glory to god. God bless your lives, god bless your lives, in the name of Jesus.

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter:  Before she fled Honduras, Keldy was a preacher, a shepherdess, in her evangelical church. From her room in Ciudad Juarez she made regular online sermons to her flock.

07:20

KELDY: "I'm going to tell you what God has promised me. I'm not going to get tired or give up…"

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: She was convinced her god would intervene to save her.

KELDY: Through the Big Door.

07:44

That's what I believed. I was going to go through the Big Door, through the North Path.

07:56

Keldy stands at border point

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: In 2017, Keldy and her family fled on that path north, leaving behind memories of another life.

08:10

Map, Route, Honduras to US border

They travelled from Honduras, through Guatemala, to southern Mexico. Then north to the border town of Puerto Palomas.

08:21

Montage photos. Asylum seekers at US border

On September the 20^th, with a paid guide, known as a coyote, Keldy and two of her sons crossed the border into New Mexico and surrendered to a border patrol. Keldy pled for asylum, but the US immigration officials were under orders from a very different higher power – President Donald Trump.

08:30

Keldy 100%

KELDY:  They told us, you’re going to go to Luna County prison for five days. And your sons will go to a shelter, and after that you’ll be reunited. It was a lie. A lie they told everybody, to all the fathers and mothers.

09:09

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: What was your last memory of the boys, that last view of them? What did you see?

KELDY:  The last time I saw them was when they separated us, and that scene is very sad because from there I lost so much from not seeing my children. I've missed seeing their adolescence. I couldn’t be with them for four years.

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: Keldy was with her two youngest sons,

09:24

Photo. Mino and Erick

15 year old Mino and his 13 year old brother Erick.

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: Go back to the separation if you would.

10:13

Keldy 100%

KELDY: They started to grab me by the waist, crying, shouting,  "No mama! No mama!" and there was nothing I could do. When my children heard they were separating us, one of them, Mino, shouted "We shouldn’t have left Honduras. At least there we would be together, even if we got killed or hurt. If we had known they were going to be so cruel taking away my mother."

10:21

Kensington GVs

11:16

Sarah visits Keldy's mother and daughter

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: In the tough Philadelphia neighbourhood of Kensington we found the house where Keldy’s mother had been looking after her sons.

11:32

Amanda is also caring for 6-year-old Dana, Keldy’s adopted intellectually disabled daughter.  The old woman brought Dana across the border in 2017.

11:43

Amanda 100%

AMANDA:  Only god knows how I'm waiting for my daughter.  Who knows what we’ll do when that day comes. It’s like living in a huge maze. We’ve all become so separated. The husband is somewhere over there, we are here, she is there.

12:11

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: In all the family’s suffering, Amanda is most worried about Mino.

12:41

AMANDA:  He sank into depression, he suffers a lot. All of us are suffering, but he is suffering more because he gets depressed, he cries and sometimes he doesn’t want to eat.

12:48

Mino tiling with Alex

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: Mino was a boy when he last saw his mother; now he’s a young man and works with his brother, Alex.

13:10

MINO:  I don't have friends here, not many, and I don't have my mother either, so I'm only left with work.

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: His memory of the separation is vivid.

13:21

Mino 100%

MINO: They told us they were going to separate us from her. What could I do? I begged the immigration officers to release her with me but they said there was no alternative, they had to take her, that I had to be separated from her. I told them they should deport us to Mexico instead, not to separate me from my mum. They said they couldn’t do that and that I had to say goodbye to her.

13:37

They took us to the detention centre, what they called the icebox, but for kids. A man laughed at us and told my brother to stop crying because I did not want the man to see our pain. The worst thing was the cold, we didn’t have any blankets, they only gave us a mattress, we didn’t have anything to cover ourselves with.

14:20

Alex tiling bathroom

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter:  Keldy’s eldest son Alex crossed the border alone and made his way to Philadelphia to be with his brothers.

ALEX: They were sad all the time because they weren’t with their mother. So I had to come.

15:00

Alex 100%

I had to come here to be with them, to take care of them and to counsel them as a big brother.

15:18

Erick 100%

ERICK:  First we lived with an aunt, then when my brother got here, we lived with him and my grandmother.

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: Erick was only 13 when his mother was taken away.

15:32

ERICK: We thought they'd just  quickly release her, but the next day they changed their minds and said they were taking our mother to an immigration prison for adults, and they were going to put us in a shelter.

15:42

Amanda 100%

AMANDA:  They've separated me from my daughter, it was torture for me without them. It was hugely painful. We did all of this because I've lived through the death of four of my children, we came here because they wanted to kill her, to kill all of us, so we fled, moving from one place to another.

16:01

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter:  In Honduras, Keldy’s family was plagued by violence. In six years, four of her brothers and a sister-in-law were murdered. Then she and her immediate family were targeted.

16:34

Keldy in room

KELDY:  When they told us that they were going to burn us alive, they were going to burn down our house and that they were going to burn it down with my sons and everything, we left with only with the clothes we had on because what they were going to do was so terrible.

16:54

Map, Honduras showing San Pedro Sula

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17:12

Sarah in car driving to San Pedro Sula

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: To learn more about Keldy's story we've to come the place she fled – Honduras. Each morning in San Pedro Sula, as regular as sunrise, they find the bodies. 

17:20

Police at murder scenes

Warring gangs control many of the city’s neighbourhoods. This hill is an MS-13 stronghold. A rival gangster was decapitated during the night. Local kids are unfazed.

17:41

The morning’s second murder site is at Rio Blanquito – the little white river – another  MS-13 neighbourhood. This 21 year old made the fatal mistake of straying into their territory. He came to see his girlfriend last night and they shot him five times. His brother limps up the path to identify him.

18:02

Sarah to camera

The absolute degradation caused by gang warfare in this area is obvious to see. Another young man dead on the ground after a violent night. It’s also obvious why people here would seek to flee from this trauma and seek refuge elsewhere.

18:43

Sarah with victim's brother

"I’m very sorry about what happened to your brother, first."

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: The victim’s brother is too afraid to show his face.

VICTIM'S BROTHER: He’s my blood you know, he is my brother. He was the youngest and the one I loved the most.

19:00

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: Did they kill him because he was another gang?

VICTIM'S BROTHER:  No, my brother never involved with the gangs, he was never caught up in that.

19:12

Honduras town GVs

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: In such a violent country the death of a brother is commonplace. The threats to kill Keldy began after she testified against the three men who murdered Oscar, the fourth of her brothers to be killed.

19:25

Keldy 100%

"Did you ever think it would be better to go back to Honduras?

KELDY: No, we were scared of going back to Honduras. In Honduras we don't have a life anymore.

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: What is it that makes that impossible?

19:46

KELDY:  The persecution against me, because I was, and still am, a protected witness, because I had to bring down a gang of hitman who murdered a member of my family. In Honduras, no one does a thing because of fear. They let their family members get killed and they do nothing. I had to denounce them, to the point they were charged, and three of them are in custody.

20:04

Police station interior, arrest of hitmen

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter:  In this most violent of Honduran cities, police today have arrested two MS-13 hitmen. Testifying against the gangs, like Keldy did, is extremely risky.

20:57

NOLESECO: They take advantage of people's fear, the more fear people have "I'll steal from you, assault you, but if you denounce us to the police I'll come for you or your relatives."

21:15

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: The national police agreed to help us find details of her brother’s murder.

21:25

Sarah with police officers looking at records on computer

"Yeah, yeah, that was it. That was Oscar. Yeah, that’s him."

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: Three men were convicted for killing Oscar, and sentenced to 17 years jail. That year, 2012, was an astonishingly murderous one in Honduras.

21:31

There were 7,176 homicides as the gangs consolidated their control of territory.  Another document confirms that prosecutors made Keldy a protected witness when threats to kill her escalated after the men were convicted.

21:52

Driving to La Ceiba. Map Honduras, showing La Ceiba/ La Ceiba GVs

We head north, far from the big cities, to Keldy's hometown. Before they were forced to abandon it, their family home was close to the Caribbean coast and the resort town of La Ceiba. It’s a lucrative market for tourism and gangsters.

22:12

The barrios on the outskirts of La Ceiba are not for tourists.

"Is it safe?"

PASTOR ISAIAS:  It’s dangerous.

22:39

Sarah walks with Pastor Isaias in barrio

In this area it’s very dangerous. Fighting for territory, you know. For drugs. Last month kill in this area one boy 11 o'clock in morning. Kill.

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: Why?

PASTOR ISAIAS:  Fighting for territory.

22:47

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: This neighbourhood is very close to where Keldy's brother Oscar was murdered.

PASTOR ISAIAS:  Brother to Sister Keldy,

23:06

Pastor Isaias interview in home

killed in this area, and then Sister Keldy was persecuted. Bad situation.

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: Pastor Isaias was Keldy's spiritual mentor.

23:13

PASTOR ISAIAS:  Sister Keldy, she is a good pastor. She has passion for preaching. She has the passion to win souls for the Kingdom of God.

23:23

Evangelical Moravian Church service

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: On Sunday morning the souls arrive at Pastor Isaias’s Evangelical Moravian Church, ready to be saved.

23:39

PASTOR ISAIAS:  "You are in God’s perfect plans.  This is why waves and winds arose to destroy your life, but still here you are, in this morning, sitting down, present in the House of God, because God has a purpose for your life. In his name…"

23:51

CONGREGATION: "Glory!"

24:11

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: It’s here that Keldy converted to Christianity after her brother’s murder.

24:14

She found God, she says, and lost her fear. There’s something hypnotic and wild in this Caribbean-inspired evangelism. It seems like a momentary escape from the danger and poverty outside.

24:25

PASTOR ISAIAS:  "I see an illness leaving her, the illness is leaving Jehovah, today it is dissipating, it is disappearing, any illness is leaving Jehovah, Jesus from Nazareth, today it is going away."

24:43

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter:  This was Keldy's world before her enemies came searching for her.

24:57

Pastor Isaias interview in home

PASTOR ISAIAS: Some people are looking, "Where is she?" But we don’t say nothing. We're very quiet, you know.

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: Who came?

PASTOR ISAIAS: Bad people, you know, bad people. Gangs, you know.

25:05

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: Looking for Keldy?

PASTOR ISAIAS: Yes, but we don’t say nothing.

25:24

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: Isaias says that after Keldy testified at the murder trial it was too dangerous for her to stay here.

25:28

PASTOR ISAIAS: Very dangerous. You know, in Honduras, in La Ceiba, all of Honduras, a lot of people are killed. Many people come out from jail but they want revenge. Oh, you put me in jail or your family or your brother or sister put me in jail. Now I want to revenge.

25:38

Driving to Barrio Israel

26:01

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: "How far is it now?"

A short drive from the church is the Barrio Israel colony where Keldy's brother Oscar lived.

26:08

Sarah to camera in car

This place was dangerous in 2012 and it's still very dangerous now. It's completely under the control of the MS-13 gang who work with drug traffickers. It’s so dangerous that we can’t get out of the car, and we were told that we need to pull down our windows, so that people can see us and know we are we are not from another gang. One road in and out; no comes here without the gang knowing.

26:21

Sarah in car

PAOLO:  This is exactly the place where the crime happened, in this street, in the middle of these houses.

26:49

Sarah meets Danilo

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: Keldy has one brother still living in Honduras. Danilo insisted we meet him at a remote location far from La Ceiba.

27:00

Ever since the murder of his brother Oscar, he says a threat has hung over every member of the family. Danilo only trusts those he calls his black brothers, the local Garifuna people. The Caribbean coast of Honduras is a trans-shipment point for cocaine from Colombia. That’s why the gangs are so strong and so ruthless. Danilo takes us far from where anyone will recognise him.

27:13

Interview with Danilo on beach

DANILO: Because I'm Oscar's brother, I'm Keldy's brother, my face and Keldy's face are similar. One guy he say I can see the face and I can put three bullets in the head. "If I see that face I'm put three bullets in your brain."

27:48

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: Danilo works as a tourist guide. It’s only here he feels safe, prepared to talk about his brother’s murder.

28:11

DANILO:  Some people killed my brother like a dog. They killed my brother for nothing, just to take control of his property. Four guys killed my brother, smashed to the head with a rock.

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: Smashed his head with a rock?

DANILO:  With a rock, yes.

28:29

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: What kind of people killed him?

DANILO:  MS-13. Somebody pay for those people.

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: So these are hired, paid to kill him.

DANILO:  To kill him. Paid to kill him.

28:56

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: He says Keldy will never be forgiven for making sure the killers were punished.

29:12

DANILO: Keldy giving information to the police and that one guy goes straight for 20 years to prison. His family be angry to Keldy and my family. Keldy come to La Ceiba, 100% somebody kill my her.

29:17

Border wall

29:32

Keldy walks to border gate

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: Much of what we’ve learnt about Keldy's fear for her life was available to the US immigration judge who ordered her deported back to Honduras. That judge is known to reject 90 percent of asylum cases. Every afternoon of her long exile in Ciudad Juarez Keldy takes a walk to the border gate to ask for divine intervention to allow her to pass through to America.

29:38

On April the 26th, Keldy heard the ping of a phone message through her shouted prayers.

Voice message: "What the government lawyers are saying is they want a week’s warning before you present yourself, so what we are saying is you are going to present yourself on Tuesday. I’ll meet you on the Mexican side and walk you across."

KELDY:  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

30:30

I finally get to see my children.

31:26

Driving, sunset

Music

31:35

Family reunion

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: This family’s reunion marked the end of a dark experiment that challenged America's idea of itself.

31:49

Lee

LEE GELERNT: To the extent there was any silver lining, it was that the American public said wait, enough is enough. It transcended ideological lines in a way that I have never seen.

32:06

Family reunion

SARAH FERGUSON, Reporter: But for the rarest moment, what mattered most was a mother’s love and the simple humanity of ordinary people.

32:16

Credits [see below]

Music

32:27

Out point

32:42