First published 2020
Jacob Soboroff chronicles the Trump administration's systematic separation of migrant families at the US-Mexico border. The NBC correspondent was among the first journalists to witness the detention facilities where thousands of children were held after being taken from their parents. Soboroff traces how this policy operated in secret for months before public awareness sparked outrage. He follows one Guatemalan family's journey from fleeing narco threats to seeking asylum, only to be split apart with the son sent to Texas and the father to California's Mojave desert. The author draws on two years of reporting and sources within the Trump administration to reveal how this humanitarian crisis unfolded. He profiles the advocates and officials who worked to reunite families and challenge the separations. Through firsthand reporting from border facilities in Texas, California, and Arizona, plus interviews in Washington DC, Soboroff documents the human cost of a policy physicians later called torture. The book examines what drove this crisis and its implications for American democracy.
Genres: 21st-century, journalism, current-affairs, activism, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: investigative-journalism, social-justice
Setting: US-Mexico Border, Texas, California, Arizona
Period: Trump Administration
388 pages · Hardcover · Custom House/Harper Collins