On September 12, 2025, Milton Mejia walked out of an interview at the federal asylum office in Boston having passed the screening that lets a person fleeing danger ask to stay in the United States. Minutes later, immigration agents arrested him in the same building. Within days he was in a detention center in Louisiana, about 1,600 miles from his wife and three daughters in Chelsea.
What happened to the family afterward is the subject of a short documentary, “They Took My Husband,” released this week by GBH News. The film follows Mejia’s wife, Brenda Romero, as she tries to keep his construction business going, pay the rent and raise their daughters while he waits in Louisiana for a decision on his appeal. The piece, by GBH senior video producer Emily Judem, was published October 28 and is available on GBH’s website.
Why they left Honduras
According to court records cited by GBH, Mejia and Romero fled Honduras after members of their families renounced a drug-trafficking cartel and the cartel came after the families. Romero’s sister was killed in front of her in 2012. Mejia’s uncle was murdered the same year. The year before, Mejia escaped an attempted stabbing.
The interview Mejia passed on the day of his arrest is known as a reasonable fear interview, a step in which an asylum officer decides whether a person has a credible claim of persecution. In January a judge in Texas ruled that he should be deported anyway. He appealed and remains in detention while the appeal is pending.
The family in Chelsea
“What worries me most is providing a roof over my daughters’ heads,” Romero says in the film. Their daughter Nathaly Rodriguez, 18, says: “I heard people in the community get detained, I never thought it was going to be my family up next.” Romero has since become an advocate for immigrant families in the area.
Mejia, speaking from detention, says: “I always tell the Lord that he gave me a family, and that he will bring me back to my family.”
Romero let GBH follow her for the past year. The film is in Spanish and English with subtitles, and the article that accompanies it includes the court records GBH reviewed.