Al Jazeera English’s Fault Lines Wins Overseas Press Club (OPC) Award

Doha – 21 March 2019

Al Jazeera English’s Fault Lines has won the Overseas Press Club’s Edward R. Murrow award for the documentary “No Shelter: Family Separation at the Border.”  The award honors “the best television, video or documentary interpretation of international affairs” less than 30 minutes. “With meticulous reporting and careful treatment, the documentary tracks every step of the process, detailing the confusion, cruelty and pain,” the judges said of the report.

In “No Shelter: Family Separation at the Border,” the Fault Lines team reported from Honduras, Mexico and the US to document the chaos of the Trump administration's family separation policy and examined how the US is closing its doors to asylum seekers escaping violence.  In Honduras, the team tracked down two fathers who were deported after being separated from their children and did not know when or if they would be reunited with their children.

Tracing the journey north, the short film looks at other ways the Trump administration is making it harder for migrants to seek asylum. At a bridge between the US and Mexico the team witnessed two teenage siblings from Guatemala being turned away as they tried to claim asylum and told there was no space for them. Half an hour later, as border agents noticed the crew filming, they allowed the siblings in.   Fault Lines also investigated alleged coercive tactics by immigration officials. Parents being held in New Mexico spoke exclusively to Fault Lines, telling us that they were reunited with their children - only to be separated a few hours later by immigration officials - when they refused to sign a form that would have waived their children’s claim to asylum.

The award goes to Executive Producer Laila Al-Arian, Senior Producer Kavitha Chekuru, Correspondent Teresa Bo, Editor Adrienne Haspel, Directors of Photography Joel Van Haren and Nicole Salazar, and field producer Raul Valdivia.

Fault Lines is a half-hour investigative news magazine programme reporting on current affairs issues about the United States and its role in the world.

The award will be presented on April 18 at the Overseas Press Club of America’s annual dinner in New York City.

View the full list of winners here