The Biden administration for the first time Tuesday reunited a family separated under Donald Trump's 'zero tolerance' immigration policies.
A mother-and-son duo, identified by the Today Show as Sandra and Bryan, were able to see each other for the first time in three years.
The reunification was caught on camera with the two embracing each other and crying.
Sandra and Bryan were the first family to be reunited under President Joe Biden's initiative to get the more than 1,000 families still separated during the previous policies back together.
Three other families are being reunited this week – it is known at least one of those families is another mother and child who fled to the U.S. from Honduras.
The first family was reunited Tuesday that had been separated under Donald Trump's 'zero tolerance' immigration policies in 2017
Sweet Reunion: Sandra and her son Bryan were able to embrace on Tuesday for the first time in more than three years
Bryan told the Today Show before the reunion with his mom that he was told three days before he would get to see her again. 'It was really … hard to grow up without a mom,' he said. 'Like let's say when I graduated she wasn't here and my birthday she wasn't there'
Sandra and Bryan crossed into the U.S. illegally in 2017 and under then-President Trump's policies were separated. Bryan was sent to shelter for minors and Sandra was eventually deported back to her home country of Mexico.
Bryan was released from the shelter into the custody of family members in the U.S. He graduated from an American high school and is now looking to help others in his position.
At the time of apprehension, Bryan was 15 and his lawyers told NBC News his mother decided to flee with him after cartels who had kidnapped and murder Bryan's father and uncle and were demanding he join their gang.
'It's just a really cruel experience that I just hope no one has to go through,' Bryan said.
'It was really … hard to grow up without a mom,' he continued. 'Like let's say when I graduated she wasn't here and my birthday she wasn't there.'
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas revealed Sunday night that four families of the estimated 1,000 that remain separated will be reunited this week.
Bryan's lawyers say when he was 15 the two fled to the U.S. from Mexico in 2017 after cartel members who kidnapped and killed his father and uncle demanded he join the gang
He described the range of children from 3-years-old at the time of separation to 'teenagers who have had to live without their parent during their most formative years.'
The administration is trying to amend the crisis at the border where minor migrant facilities saw overcrowding by sometimes more than 2,000 per cent capacity.
Customs and Border Protection, DHS announced, had 677 unaccompanied children in custody over the weekend compared to the record 5,767 the agency had in its custody on March 28 – an 88 percent decrease.
'The Family Reunification Task Force has been working day and night, across the federal government and with counsel for the families and our foreign partners, to address the prior administration's cruel separation of children from their parents,' Mayorkas said in a statement announcing the family reunification.
'Today is just the beginning,' he added. 'We are reuniting the first group of families, many more will follow, and we recognize the importance of providing these families with the stability and resources they need to heal.
Over the weekend, a group of migrant children started arriving at the Pomona Fairplex fairgrounds in southern California, which the Biden administration has set up as temporary housing for unaccompanied minors who arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Officials say these children, ranging in age from 7 to 14, will remain at the site until they can be reunited with family or placed with sponsors.
Joe Biden's administration announced over the weekend it would begin reuniting families this week who were separated when crossing the border under Donald Trump's 'zero tolerance' immigration policies. Here an immigrant mother carries her children into the U.S. after crossing illegally from Mexico
Four of the 1,000 families who remain separated will be reunited this week as Biden's Family Reunification Task Force charges forward with starting the process. Pictured: Migrant families overcrowded in a U.S. border facility in McAllen, Texas in June 2019
The Fairplex can house up to 2,500 minors
It is not immediately clear how DHS selected these four families to be reunited first and the agency has not yet responded to a request for more information from DailyMail.com.
The president promised during his campaign that he would reunite families separated after crossing the border and created a task force shortly after taking office dedicated to reunification.
Mayorkas, who heads the task force on reuniting separated families, told reporters Sunday: 'Our team is dedicated to finding every family and giving them an opportunity to reunite and heal.'
'We continue to work tirelessly to reunite many more children with their parents in the weeks and months ahead,' he said during the call. 'We have a lot of work still to do, but I am proud of the progress we have made and the reunifications that we have helped to achieve this week.'
The administration's Family Reunification Task Force Executive Director Michelle Brane said the parents will return to the U.S. on humanitarian parole as authorities consider longer-term legal status.
Under Trump's policies, families arriving at the border were separated into different facilities, upon which time most parents and adults were deported, while children were kept in federal custody.
Now, Biden will begin the process of allowing parents who were previously deported to return to the U.S. to be with their children.
Record numbers of illegal immigrants continue to cross into the U.S. as Biden promises no unaccompanied children will be turned away and said during his campaign he would accept all asylum-seekers. Here a smuggler paddles immigrants across the Rio Grande River on April 30
Starting in the summer of 2017, Trump implemented 'zero-tolerance' policies to easier criminally prosecute illegal immigrants, which led to more than 5,000 children being separated from their parents. The practices officially ended by court order in June 2018.
Brane believes there are still 1,000 families who are separated.
Despite the reunification process kicking off this week, the Biden administration is still facing its biggest issues at the southern border.
In recent months, Biden has seen record-numbers of illegal immigrants crossing as he vowed during his campaign all asylum-seekers would have a place in the U.S.
There are also tens of thousands of unaccompanied minor children in federal custody after public messaging from the White House promised not to turn away any children arriving at the border without an adult.
The new Pomona Fairplex migrant holding facility has a capacity to hold 2,500 children. The new measure comes after the Long Beach Convention Center in Los Angeles also opened its doors to house unaccompanied minors.
'These children as you know have endured abuse, persecution, deep poverty, and violence and they are simply seeking refuge,' LA County Board of Supervisors Chair Hilda L. Solis said Thursday, according to KTLA.
The Pomona and Long Beach centers are meant as a temporary means to house the hundreds of minor migrants apprehended every day at the southern border without an adult accompanying them.
Migrants from Northern Triangle countries continue to take dangerous measures to get into the U.S.
Four people were killed and more than two dozen others were hospitalized Sunday after a boat capsized and broke apart in rough water just off the San Diego coast during a suspected human smuggling operation, authorities said.
Smugglers continue dangerous tactics to get immigrants to the U.S. Four people were killed and nearly two dozen others were hospitalized after a boat capsized Sunday just off the San Diego coast
Video footage shot by horrified beachgoers shows the boat tipping over in the water before breaking apart as it was battered by the waves and rocks.
Lifeguards, the U.S. Coast Guard and other agencies responded around 10 a.m. following reports of an overturned vessel in the waves near the rugged peninsula of Point Loma, according to the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department.
The original call was for a handful of people overboard but as rescuers arrived in boats and jet skis they quickly realized 'it was going to be a bigger situation with more people,' said San Diego Lifeguard Services Lt. Rick Romero.
'There are people in the water, drowning, getting sucked out the rip current there,' he said. 'Once we arrived on scene, the boat had basically been broken apart. Conditions were pretty rough: 5 to 6 feet of surf, windy, cold.'
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