Separated: Inside an American Tragedy

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!

This non-fiction piece was a reporter’s deep-dive journey into piecing together one of the greatest human-made catastrophes of our nation’s history—the family separations of mostly central-American immigrants from the Zero-Tolerance policies that were put into effect during the Trump administration. With no foundation in place to track these separated children and their parents, thousands of lives were traumatized when these policies were put in place and American agencies—understaffed and underfunded—were not in any position to care for the thousands of “unaccomapanied minors” suddenly thrust into their care.I came away being sickened the most by the leaders that pushed for these policies and carried out the awful acts (even in secret before they became legitimate announced policies) and held no remorse for their actions, and even profited in their careers from their loyalty to the chief. But there were some in the background who were horrified and trying (with the little power they had) to put families back together when churches, humanitarian agencies, and finally the courts castigated the Trump administration for flagrant abuse of their Constitutional authority when the whole hulabaloo came to light to the American public. Still, so many lives forever changed by the trauma of those months of separation and incarceration. Made me sad to read the nit-picky details of a portion of the atrocities that went on—done by Americans on American soil to innocents. It was a page out of Nazi Germany, in my opinion. This book isn’t entertaining. It’s informative. It has tons of documents—emails, legal affidavits, that type of stuff that can make for tedious reading. But it does give a better glimpse into what went on during that time for a few specific individuals, and how the American agencies were handling it (or mishandling it, more like).

There has been so much chaos, divisiveness, and discourse over the last 4 years that we sometimes become numb to the cruelty of an administration that told us exactly what it planned to do. It is sad that 70 million folks have implicitly endorsed the policy, among others, with their vote. Granted, many voters are not one-issue voters; however, this "zero tolerance" policy is emblematic of other cruel "them vs. us" rhetoric, and worse, their actions.Thankfully throughout the cruelty, Jacob Soboroff, keeps this issue in the crowded headlines. I appreciated how he captured the true stories of those affected (e,g., Juan and his son Jose).I am hopeful that our institutions are trying to hold despite incredible pressure from the Executive branch. Asylum is legal but has been criminalized as indicative of the excerpts below,Quoting case law, Judge Sabraw, a George W. Bush appointee, declared that a “practice of this sort implemented in this way is likely to be ‘so egregious, so outrageous, that it may fairly be said to shock the contemporary conscience,’ interferes with rights ‘implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,’ and is so ‘brutal’ and ‘offensive’ that it [does] not comport with traditional ideas of fair play and decency."Sabraw characterized the current state of affairs as a “chaotic circumstance of the Government’s own making” that “has reached a crisis level,” resulting in “the casual, if not deliberate, separation of families.” That the Trump administration had “no reunification plan in place” was “a startling reality.”[Physicians for Human Rights].... “U.S. officials,” the group wrote, “intentionally carried out discriminatory actions that caused severe pain and suffering, in order to punish, coerce, and intimidate Central American asylum seekers to give up their asylum claims.”

Jacob Soboroff sets out the story of this policy clearly and masterfully. His prose is sharp and succinct. The inhumanity and horror of the policy comes through very powerfully. His account of this American Tragedy makes it clear that it was a deliberate policy choice, not merely a bureaucratic snafu. It is an excellent work of contemporary journalism written with great empathy and humanity. The Afterword to the paperback edition makes the story even worse.

Well written, lots of details that I did not previously glean from cable news shows. Jacob is someone who we will be seeing lots of in the future

Very sad for everyone but good read, knowing what happened and why