Emotional video shows family being reunited in Philly after border separation in 2017
PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- An emotional video captured the moment a mother from Honduras was reunited with her children in Philadelphia after being separated at the border in 2017.
That woman, Mabel Gonzalez, last saw her children when they were separated at the southern border.
On Tuesday night, the mother was reunited with her sons, Mino and Erick, at a family gathering in Philadelphia.
The family fled Honduras in the fall of 2017 and scattered across the continent. Her oldest son Alex and her husband had crossed into the U.S.
She and her two younger sons attempted to do the same when they were stopped in New Mexico. Gonzalez was held in a detention facility in El Paso.
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The family is among the first to be reunited by organizations working with the Biden administration's Family Reunification Taskforce. The family is one of the thousands of families that were separated under former President Donald Trump's "zero-tolerance" policy that was aimed at deterring illegal immigration.
Immigration and family attorney Karenina Wolff helped Alex, who was already in Philadelphia, become his brothers' legal guardian.
"Alex was only 19 and working when he stepped up to support (his brothers)," said Karenina Wolff. "For me, to see their mom and the boys and be reunited with their mom is really moving," she said while getting emotional.
Alex tells Action News he "feels a little bit freer."
"Before I had a lot of headaches, a lot of stress, everything was on me. And now I feel a little bit lighter knowing that I'm not alone in this anymore," he added.
Alex says the first thing his mother did when they reunited was wrap her arms around him and say how proud of him she was for taking care of his younger brothers in her absence.
-- ABC News contributed to this report.
