SEPTEMBER 2020 - AudioFile
Award-winning NBC news correspondent Jacob Soboroff narrates his firsthand account of family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border— which have led to one of the greatest humanitarian crises of modern times. Soboroff's work at NBC ensures that his presentation as a narrator is near perfect, even as he negotiates the emotionally difficult stories of human beings caged in what were often little more than large dog kennels. His delivery is mostly straightforward, but at times it’s easy to hear his frustration and disbelief as he reports what he saw—and what he discovered with additional research. This audiobook focuses more on the human aspect of what occurred than on the politics of immigration. At times it can be truly hard to stomach what one is hearing. V.B. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
06/29/2020
MSNBC correspondent Soboroff examines the origins and ramifications of the Trump administration’s “deliberate and systemic separation of thousands of migrant children from their parents” in his harrowing and deeply informed debut. One of several journalists who brought attention to the family separation controversy after touring a Texas holding facility in 2018, Soboroff sketches the history of “deterrence-based immigration policy” under presidents Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama, and details how Trump’s ire over an increase in migrant detentions led attorney general Jeff Sessions to mandate criminal charges for anyone caught illegally crossing the border. Drawing on interviews with border security agents and White House staffers, Soboroff describes key moments in the decision-making process behind family separation, and punctuates his analysis with excerpts from asylum requests. The story of 12-year-old José and his father, Juan, who fled Guatemala for the U.S. only to be detained for months in separate facilities, is interwoven throughout. Though Trump was forced to back down from his “zero-tolerance” approach to border enforcement, and the issue has since fallen out of the headlines, Soboroff contends that the administration is still causing “immeasurable pain and unexpected suffering” to migrants. He presents a wealth of insider details, balancing his own sense of outrage with dogged reporting and vivid sketches of impacted families. The result is an impassioned, essential account of “one of the most shameful chapters in modern American history.” (July)
From the Publisher
"The seminal book on the child-separation policy." — Rachel Maddow, The Rachel Maddow Show
"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 excellent reporting at the border helped shine a light on Trump's cruel family separation policy. His new book, Separated, is a sobering account of what he saw and the human toll of the Trump agenda." — Julián Castro
"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." — Laura Wides-Muñoz, Washington Post
“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
“Groundbreaking. … All the original reporting in this book is extraordinary.” — Andrea Mitchell
"To experience the pain and anger many suburban voters felt about Trump’s policy of ripping children from the arms of their asylum-seeking parents along the southern border, I’d recommend Separated: Inside an American Tragedy by Jacob Soboroff." — Eugene Robinson, Washington Post
"Fantastic. ... Serves as a blueprint, honestly, for everything that we are seeing now in the pandemic, everything wrong with this administration, it's all right there in black and white. ... The book is fantastic, the reporting is fantastic." — Chris Hayes
"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)
Andrea Mitchell
Groundbreaking. … All the original reporting in this book is extraordinary.”
Laura Wides-Muñoz
"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."
Rachel Maddow
"The seminal book on the child-separation policy."
Booklist (starred review)
"Soboroff’s thoroughly engaging exposé of the inner workings of a corrupt and unfeeling government is essential to understanding America's current immigration misery."
Chris Hayes
"Fantastic. ... Serves as a blueprint, honestly, for everything that we are seeing now in the pandemic, everything wrong with this administration, it's all right there in black and white. ... The book is fantastic, the reporting is fantastic."
Joy-Ann Reid
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.”
Eugene Robinson
"To experience the pain and anger many suburban voters felt about Trump’s policy of ripping children from the arms of their asylum-seeking parents along the southern border, I’d recommend Separated: Inside an American Tragedy by Jacob Soboroff."
Julián Castro
"Jacob Soboroff's excellent reporting at the border helped shine a light on Trump's cruel family separation policy. His new book, Separated, is a sobering account of what he saw and the human toll of the Trump agenda."
Forward
Chronicles the crossed wires and cold calculation that fostered America’s most glaring humanitarian crisis in recent memory. ... Most affectingly, the book is also a portrait of a Guatemalan father, Juan, and his teenage son, Jose, who sought asylum in the U.S., only to be forced apart as they crossed from Mexico into Arizona.
Texas Public Radio
"An expansive, complex, and multi-layered story about the immigration crisis and the policy that separates families seeking asylum in the United States."
Texas Observer
"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."
Marc Lamont Hill (via Twitter)
A powerful and eye-opening account of Trump’s separation of migrant families at the US-Mexico border. A wonderful example of political journalism.”
Michael Moore
This is one of the most powerful books of this year. ... Will fire you and your friends and your family up in a way we need to be fired up.
America Magazine
"A blistering report on the Trump administration’s family-separation policies."
New York Times
"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."
Errol Morris (via Twitter)
"An important and disturbing book."
Jennifer Szalai
"Shows how the Trump administration implemented a policy that amounted to a humanitarian catastrophe. ... What Soboroff memorably depicts isn’t just tragic but brutal."
Katy Tur (via Twitter)
The details Jacob Soboroff uncovered are demoralizing. The government deliberations coupled with the painful personal stories of parents who lost kids and Jacob’s own reporting journey make this book a must read.”
Chris Hayes (via Twitter)
"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."
Austin American-Statesman
"Searing."
"Best Nonfiction Books of 2020" Cosmopolitan
"Jacob Soboroff, an award-winning NBC correspondent, delves deep into the Trump's administration's systematic family separation practice. It's a bleak but necessary read about why this inhumane policy is allowed to happen in America."
Don Winslow
"Jacob Soboroff has done A LOT of very good work on [immigration policy]. I hope you will buy his book and educate yourself on the horrors Donald Trump inflicted on so many innocent families and children."
Mehdi Hasan
"A must read. Never forget the greatest domestic scandal of the Trump administration, prior to the arrival of the coronavirus."
Pasadena Weekly
"Add Jacob Soboroff’s Separated: Inside an American Tragedy to the library of essential reading about the administration of the 45th president of the United States. ... Brings narrative clarity and some dramatic tension to coverage of policy deliberations and agency politics."
Andrew Zimmern (via Twitter)
Phenomenal. Please read it.”
Washington Post
"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."
New York Times Book 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."
Washington Post
"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."
Connie Schultz (via Twitter)
I have relied on Jacob’s relentless reporting about the Trump administration’s barbaric treatment of migrant children at our border. This is a hard and necessary book. … Impossible to overstate the importance of Jacob Soboroff’s book because it’s impossible to overstate the importance of these children and their families.”
Library Journal
07/01/2020
Award-winning journalist Soboroff, correspondent and anchor for NBC News and MSNBC, reports on the Trump administration's policy of separation of families at the U.S.-Mexico border. Soboroff argues that this policy is the latest iteration of decades of harsh U.S. immigration policy, and explores its beginnings in the Obama administration. However, the bulk of the book is devoted to the Trump administration's implementation, and the author examines documents and includes firsthand interviews in order to help bring the decision-making to light. Additionally, Soboroff describes his experiences reporting on the border, especially the border wall. His reporting inches close to those affected by family separation and he expresses regret at not finding the story earlier. Meanwhile, migrant Juan and his son Jose flee Guatemala only to be separated as they cross the border, which adds a personal dimension. As Soboroff's reporting brings new attention to immigration policy, the backlash grows and the Trump administration rethinks its approach. Documents highlighting the policy's effects are interspersed between chapters. Soboroff closes by reflecting on current immigration practices and implications. VERDICT Readers interested in learning more about immigration policy will be drawn to this captivating account, which deftly weaves together the political and the personal.—Rebekah Kati, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
SEPTEMBER 2020 - AudioFile
Award-winning NBC news correspondent Jacob Soboroff narrates his firsthand account of family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border— which have led to one of the greatest humanitarian crises of modern times. Soboroff's work at NBC ensures that his presentation as a narrator is near perfect, even as he negotiates the emotionally difficult stories of human beings caged in what were often little more than large dog kennels. His delivery is mostly straightforward, but at times it’s easy to hear his frustration and disbelief as he reports what he saw—and what he discovered with additional research. This audiobook focuses more on the human aspect of what occurred than on the politics of immigration. At times it can be truly hard to stomach what one is hearing. V.B. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2020-05-17
NBC News and MSNBC correspondent Soboroff takes a piercing look at a controversial immigration policy.
Separating migrant minors from their families has been a hallmark of the current administration—and, writes the author, “an unparalleled abuse of the human rights of children.” His narrative begins in June 2018 in Brownsville, Texas, where he toured a former Walmart that had been converted into a “shelter” to house some 1,500 migrant boys, many of them caught with their families trying to enter the U.S. By virtue of the administration’s vaunted “zero tolerance” policy, these children represent what Soboroff calls “an avoidable catastrophe.” His sketches of the detention centers are consistently affecting and haunting. As he noted at the time, “this place is called a shelter, but effectively these kids are incarcerated.” The policy of separation was foreshadowed in Trump’s blustery rhetoric during the 2016 campaign—but more by his lieutenant Stephen Miller, who loudly voiced “vitriol for undocumented immigrants.” It was up to Homeland Security head Kirstjen Nielsen to enact it, even after she was warned that family separations would constitute a violation of the constitutional principle of fair treatment. Miller’s faction won the day, and family separation became policy. Startlingly, when a federal judge ruled against the policy and ordered the government to reunite detained families, Customs and Border Patrol admitted that it had planned to separate “more than 26,000 children between May and September 2018” alone. Naturally, the administration has denied the policy even as, Soboroff notes, the principals involved who remain in the administration are now the very people who are coordinating the government’s bungled response to COVID-19. And even though the policy has theoretically been terminated by executive order, thousands of migrant children are still detained in tent cities and other facilities across the border, in some cases without their families for years.
A book of justifiably righteous indignation at—and condemnation of—a monstrous program.
