Separated

Inside an American Tragedy

By: Jacob Soboroff

Narrated by: Jacob Soboroff

Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

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 US 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, DC, 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.

©2020 Jacob Soboroff (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers

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

American tragedy

I’m thankful to Jacob Soboroff, Julia Ainsley and others for doggedly searching out and reporting this traffic story. A painful chapter in America.

Important history of our time

wonderfully engaging. detailed but never tedious. very, very important information about what has happened in our lifetime. never again.

Glad I listened

This is written by a journalist and it reads like it was—which I don’t think is a bad thing.

I listened to this one, and it was super informative and well done. What a heartbreaking chapter into immigration!

I’d recommend this one.

Heartbreaking!

Great book & very good narration. Oh, how I wish these monsters could be brought to justice. If there is a just God...

Saddistic Separation Shudders the Soul

Brace yourself for a shocking American tragedy that you can't believe is the country we live in and share with people who have no feelings for humanity. The lives of the people subjected to the horrors of being ripped apart and treated like animals without knowing where their child is makes your heart break and your whole body ache. It is tough to read but you must do it and get through it. This is a journalist's view so it is factual and straight forward and not a fantasy fiction adventure. This is raw truth.

Salvadoran Immigrant

Listening to this account of family separations is gut wrenching. I cried as I listened. I cried as I imagined the families being separated. I cried as I read about the conditions immigrant children were put in. My "heart hurts" reading about all this trauma.

One thing I hope people who read this book and for people that are unsure about how they feel about Trump's policy on family separations is this: we have a broken immigration system but we can not allow our inability to have significant and dedican immigration policies break families apart. It doesn't have to happen this way. My family immigrated in the 80's. My mom 20 yrs old at the time with a 9 month old in her arms and the thought of my older brother possibly being ripped from her arms tears at my soul. We were fortunate.

Great reporting by Jacob Soboroff and I look forward to filling his journalistic career.

Buy the print version

Sorry, not sorry, but you’ve heard the old saying “they have a face for radio”, well... he has a voice for the written word. I’m 6 chapters in, and this book is painful to listen to. It’s flat, monotone, nearly affectless delivery made me wish that the author would have read it just to add SOME level of interest to the delivery. Imagine my surprise to realize the author IS the narrator. Sorry, Mr. Soboroff.

The story, when I can glean part of it, is interesting and well researched, and I really do appreciate the effort to collect and provide the back story in a chronological, meaningful way; I want to know the information within, but...

I’ve often bought the Audible version when I haven’t had the time to read a book, but this will be the first time I’ve done the reverse; I’ll be buying the print version just to be able to comprehend what the author is trying to tell us.

While I usually really enjoy listening to the story in the author’s own voice, this is an exception. Buy the print version.