One evening last winter, before we brought cameras and microphones into her life, Brenda Romero sat with me in a quiet room at La Colaborativa in Chelsea, Massachusetts, her daughters alternately napping and playing on couches in the hallway.
She recounted that she and her husband Milton Mejia had fled their native Honduras in search of safety. Their families had been targeted by a narcotrafficking cartel after family members renounced the group. The cartel sought retribution, according to court documents.
Romero and Mejia’s fear was not hypothetical.
In 2012, Romero’s sister was killed in front of her. Mejia’s uncle was murdered the same year. The year before, Mejia had narrowly escaped an attempted stabbing.
But Romero and Mejia have not, ultimately, found security in the U.S.
On Sept. 12, 2025, minutes after he passed a “reasonable fear” interview – an important step in his bid to stay in the U.S. legally – ICE officials arrested Mejia at the USCIS Asylum Office in Boston, and within days, he was sent to a detention facility in Louisiana – 1,600 miles from his family and legal representation.
“They Took My Husband,” a new short documentary from GBH News, chronicles the aftermath of Mejia’s arrest for Romero and her three daughters.
Romero allowed us to follow her in the last year as she has adjusted to life without Mejia — and without his income.
“What worries me most is providing a roof over my daughters’ heads. That’s my biggest fear … that I might end up having to sleep in my car,” she said in an interview in February.
Even as she struggles to keep her family housed, Romero wrestles with another fear — that her husband will be sent back to Honduras to face the deadly violence they both fled.
Their father’s absence and his uncertain future takes a toll on his three daughters, including 18-year-old Nathaly Rodriguez.
“I never imagined my family living this life,” she said. “I heard people in the community get detained, I never thought it was going to be my family up next.”
As she confronts increasingly difficult circumstances, Romero finds her voice as an immigrant rights advocate fighting for her family — and for a community in the crosshairs of a federal immigration crackdown.
In January, a Texas judge ruled that Mejia should be deported. He has appealed the decision and is still in detention in Louisiana, awaiting a response.
Through it all, Mejia, Romero and their daughters keep going, with determination — and perhaps most remarkably — hope.
Said Mejia, after more than a year in detention, “I always tell the Lord that he gave me a family, and that he will bring me back to my family.”
