Separated

Inside an American Tragedy

By: Jacob Soboroff

Narrated by: Jacob Soboroff

From the award-winning NBC News and MSNBC correspondent comes a powerful and deeply reported journey to lay bare the full truth behind the defining moral crisis of the Trump years: the systematic separation of thousands of desperate migrant families at the US-Mexico border

In June 2018, Donald Trump’s most notorious decision as president had secretly been in effect for months before most Americans became aware of the astonishing inhumanity being perpetrated by their own government. Jacob Soboroff was among the first journalists to expose this reality after seeing firsthand the living conditions of the children in custody. His influential series of reports ignited public scrutiny that contributed to the president reversing his own policy and earned Soboroff the Cronkite Award for Excellence in Political Broadcast Journalism and, with his colleagues, the 2019 Hillman Prize for Broadcast Journalism.

But beyond the headlines, the complete, multilayered story lay untold. How, exactly, had such a humanitarian tragedy—now deemed “torture” by physicians—happened on American soil? Most important, what has been the human experience of those separated children and parents?

Soboroff has spent the past two years reporting the many strands of this complex narrative, developing sources from within the Trump administration who share critical details for the first time. He also traces the dramatic odyssey of one separated family from Guatemala, where their lives were threatened by narcos, to seek asylum at the U.S. border, where they were separated—the son ending up in Texas, and the father thousands of miles away, in the Mojave desert of central California. And he joins the heroes who emerged to challenge the policy, and who worked on the ground to reunite parents with children.

In this essential reckoning, Soboroff weaves together these key voices with his own experience covering this national issue—at the border in Texas, California, and Arizona; with administration officials in Washington, D.C., and inside the disturbing detention facilities. Separated lays out compassionately, yet in the starkest of terms, its human toll, and makes clear what is at stake in the 2020 presidential election.

Heartbreaking—The Nightmare Nightmare—Crimes Against Humanity

Chasing the American Dream leads to an American Nightmare. Jacob Soboroff’s heartrending take of how Juan, José, and thousands of innocent asylum seekers have been treated: political pawns is a living nightmare. The one question we have yet to discover the answer to is perhaps the most disconcerting—where are the little children and where are the girls from infant through 17? This book will raise questions and bring tears. As a US Army veteran and a LIfe Member of the Disabled American Veterans (DAV), I found myself asking the same question time-and-time-again: “What happened to the democracy I served, and how has the American Dream turned into a living nightmare for 10s of 1000s of innocents? Jacob Soboroff turns a spotlight on the Trump Administration’s American Nightmare—crimes against children and crimes against humanity. This cannot stand. It must not stand!

Better all the way around then I expected

Very impressive presentation of this story that I remember following nightly on MSNBC. Di d not drag and conveyed a focus on how intentionally cruel this policy was. Fits president Trump to a “T”. Hopefully in January 2021 a new Democratically controlled congress will begin a measure investigative process to present this story for the public record.

I need to know

Well read. Easily understood information well documented. The heartlessness of the reality of the story breaks my heart

Important Work -- Must Read

Separated is an important work as it chronicles one of the worst human tragedies imposed by the US government in modern history. It will make you cry. It will make you angry. You will feel retraumatised and ashamed. You will be led through a labyrinth of incompetence, abuse and cruelty that is/was the Trump administration's family separation policy. Jacob Soberoff presents a basically chronological recounting of the way this policy was enacted and played out in the lives of countless immigrant families. He names many of the villains and behind the scenes heroes involved in the reality of Trump's policy. He takes a deep dive into the complicated, if shameful history of the way the US government has tried and failed to deal with it's broken immigration system before and during the Trump administration. The format or style in which the story is presented poses some problems. I found it hard to follow the details. To a large extent, Soboroff quotes from his notes or his TV reporting using a lot of numbers and dates. This makes the audible format less than ideal -- the numbers become kind of a blur, and the notes are disjointed. It would probably be much easier to follow in written text form. There would be visual clues from formatting and punctuation that would help. Thus, the 3 star rating for story. Evenso, the story is of such high value historically and morally, I still recommend you read/listen to it however you can get hold of it.

Unbelievable

A must read for a better understanding of what Trump and his administration have done, and continue to do against family's.