Separated: Inside an American Tragedy Hardcover – July 7, 2020
by Jacob Soboroff (Author)
4.8 out of 5 stars 195 ratings
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THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
The award-winning NBC News correspondent lays bare the full truth behind the Trump administration’s systematic separation of 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.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"As a correspondent for NBC News, Soboroff was among the the first to report on the Trump administration's family separation policy; here, he digs deeper into its roots and consequences." (New York Times Book Review, "New & Notable")
"Jacob Soboroff’s new book Separated is a kind of skeleton key to understanding the full totality of all the incompetence and cruelty on display by this administration in this era." (Chris Hayes (via Twitter))
"Shows how the Trump administration implemented a policy that amounted to a humanitarian catastrophe. ... What Soboroff memorably depicts isn’t just tragic but brutal." (Jennifer Szalai, New York Times)
"Jacob Soboroff zooms in on President Trump and his administration’s decision to separate children from their parents as a deterrent to border crossers. In doing so, he illuminates how, in the face of congressional inaction, a cadre of presidential advisers can introduce policies with shocking, unintended consequences." (Washington Post)
“A detailed, graphic account of the Trump administration’s horrendous policy of family separations. … Groundbreaking work. … All the original reporting in this book is extraordinary.” (Andrea Mitchell)
“This book is important. Everyone should read it. We have to face our demons as a country, and this is an opportunity to face our demons.” (Joy-Ann Reid)
“In this fairly stunning new book from Jacob, he has broken news about what happened after the New York Times first reported on the list of kids the Trump administration was keeping to track how many of them had been taken away from their parents.” (Rachel Maddow, The Rachel Maddow Show)
"The NBC News correspondent examines the Trump administration’s systematic separation of migrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border and the living conditions of the children in custody." (New York Times)
"A thorough account. ... Separated takes a well-deserved place among the multiple accounts of the Trump administration’s machinations as one journalist’s up-close view of an extremely painful moment in the nation’s history." (Texas Observer)
"Soboroff’s thoroughly engaging exposé of the inner workings of a corrupt and unfeeling government is essential to understanding America's current immigration misery." (Booklist (starred review))
About the Author
Jacob Soboroff is a correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC. For his reporting on the child-separation policy, he received the 2019 Walter Cronkite Award for Individual Achievement by a National Journalist and the 2019 Hillman Prize for Broadcast Journalism. He has appeared on Today, Morning Joe, The Rachel Maddow Show, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and numerous other programs. He co-presented (with Katy Tur) the four-part event docuseries American Swamp on MSNBC. He lives in Los Angeles.
Product details
Hardcover: 416 pages
Publisher: Custom House (July 7, 2020)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0062992198
ISBN-13: 978-0062992192
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.3 x 8.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Customer Reviews: 4.8 out of 5 stars195 customer ratings
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,289 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
#6 in Emigration & Immigration Studies (Books)
#1 in Immigration Policy
#4 in U.S. Immigrant History
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Biography
Jacob Soboroff is a correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC. For his reporting on the child-separation policy, he received the 2019 Walter Cronkite Award for Individual Achievement by a National Journalist and the 2019 Hillman Prize for Broadcast Journalism. He has appeared on Today, Morning Joe, The Rachel Maddow Show, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and numerous other programs. He co-presented (with Katy Tur) the four-part event docuseries American Swamp on MSNBC. He lives in Los Angeles.
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Top reviews from the United States
Jack Frost East
5.0 out of 5 stars Essential journalism
Reviewed in the United States on July 7, 2020
Thank you, Jacob Soboroff, for being on this story from the beginning and never letting it go. “Separated” is a searing and moving record of the Trump administration’s cruelty and incompetence, reported at a depth never before told. Read it.
174 people found this helpful
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Fea
5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for every American.
Reviewed in the United States on July 10, 2020
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As many of us do, I believe the separation of migrant children from their parents is a shame that the United States will never be able to live down. Our souls were darkened by this horrible policy. Jacob Soboroff reported on the separation and his book shows us how it happened. His inclusion of the tale of a father and son caught in the trap brings a reality and heart to his reporting.
63 people found this helpful
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melissa
5.0 out of 5 stars An important read for anyone with a conscience
Reviewed in the United States on July 10, 2020
We all need to read and be more educated on the plight of these poor children and families. Thanks for writing on this painful topic and forcing us not to look away.
75 people found this helpful
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Trudie Barreras
TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE VOICE
5.0 out of 5 stars TOTALLY WHERE IT'S AT!
Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2020
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Although Jacob Soboroff’s overwhelming documentary “Separated: Inside an American Tragedy” in the Kindle version has been in my hands only for a few days since it became available on July 7, 2020, the issue of family separation of asylum seekers at the US Southern Border has been one of my greatest concerns for over two years. Indeed, so much so that for several months during the summer of 2018 when this atrocious policy was most in the news, many of my Facebook posts and even my “cover photo” on that site featured various photographs of a little statuette I have featuring Mary riding a donkey while breast-feeding the Baby Jesus during the “Flight into Egypt”. It was obvious to me then, and I still maintain the strong conviction today, that for a nation that claims to hold "Christian Principles” and “Family Values” in high regard, tearing children and parents apart to enforce draconian and totally illegal immigration restrictions is both hypocritical and unconscionable.
The first part of Soboroff’s narrative deals with his experiences while trying to develop a documentary on the border situation for the NBC Newsmagazine “Dateline”. In some ways it feels confusing and disjointed, because he intersperses personal reporting vignettes with background information on the (at that time) seemingly unrelated “policy discussions” between Administration officials and the affidavits submitted by individual asylum seekers whose cases were in an ACLU class-action lawsuit. However, as the narrative builds, the threads begin to converge and present a truly horrifying tapestry of the cruelty, incompetence and irrationality involved with application of the “Zero Tolerance Policy” implemented by Attorney General Sessions and other Cabinet officials and underlings at the behest of our obsessed president.
In addition to being a deeply powerful and completely empathic delineation of the atrocious and ongoing family separation process, Soboroff’s book offers an intriguing insight into the day-to-day processes and adventures of modern-day reporting for a cable news network. He also includes some extremely authentic personal notes, including a description of being in the throes of a nauseated migraine while visiting one of the more remote border crossing outposts in the Sonoran Desert at night. As a one-time migraine sufferer, I have to say this description made it “real” to me as nothing else could. The author’s on-line reporting is of course magnificent, as anyone who has encountered it knows, but his book is – I can think of no better term – TOTALLY WHERE IT’S AT!
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48 people found this helpful
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Beachwalker8
5.0 out of 5 stars Witness. Don’t turn away.
Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2020
When I was nineteen and studying abroad with Stanford University, our first outing was to Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp. With no preparation, I was tossed in the throes of one of history’s darkest chapters and asked by the sights and personal relics of those who had passed there to bear witness and take responsibility for never allowing us to forget the horrors that happened there. I am 69 and the gut punch of that shameful human chapter remains with me today. In this riveting book, Jacob Soberoff, shares a similarly life changing window into a shameful but rarely spoken of chapter in recent American history and the unimaginable cruelty perpetuated on thousands of children and their families. He too was marked by what he saw. He is an invaluable witness to these events recorded in real time. Please do not turn away. Witness. Hopefully we can find ways to heal the unhealable and stop this ongoing tragedy now. Also be aware that the players in this inhumane story , like Alex Azar are now orchestrating our distastrous response to the Corona Virus Pandemic applying a similar lack of caring about human life and families. Buy it for your schools. Give to your families. Be a witness.
67 people found this helpful
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