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How the U.S. Developed Its Policy of Separating Parents and Children at the Border

09/28/2021 12:31:02 PM

Sep28

The Immigrant Rights Action Team is pleased to announce plans to participate in the Dane Sanctuary Coalition’s Big Read event this fall. We will be reading the book Separated: Inside an American Tragedy, by Jacob Soboroff, a gripping look at the U.S. child-separation policy.

In June 2018, Americans became aware that the government was deliberately separating migrant parents and children at U.S. border facilities. 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, did such a humanitarian tragedy happen on American soil? What was the human experience of those separated children and parents?

Soboroff spent two years reporting the many strands of this complex narrative, using inside government sources. He traces the dramatic odyssey of one separated family from Guatemala, where their lives were threatened by drug dealers, 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 those who worked on the ground to reunite parents with children. Separated lays out the human toll and makes clear what is at stake as America struggles to reset its immigration policies.

Dates for the book group discussions will be announced soon. Now is the time to get your book and start reading. Orders of five or more books will qualify for a 50% discount, so if you’d like to order a copy through Temple Beth El, please contact Lynn Silverman about joining a group order. Copies are also available from local bookstores A Room of One’s Own and Mystery to Me and at the Madison Public Library. Dates for the discussions will be posted in the Weekly Happenings email and sent to the immigrant rights email list. Whether the discussions will be by Zoom or in person will be decided closer to the time.

April 26, 2024 18 Nisan 5784