The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Soboroff, Jacob. Separated: Inside an American Tragedy. Custom House, 2020.

MSNBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff examines the origins of the Trump administration’s controversial immigration policy of separating families at the border. When faced with the possibility of criminalizing illegal entry into the United States, Obama administration officials chose not to because of its implication: migrant adults would need to be arrested and children would be sent into the care of the federal government. Where the Obama administration officials felt this would be a breach of conscientious decision-making, the Trump administration is willing to separate families as a deterrent for crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

By April 2017 Jeff Sessions, Attorney General of the Trump administration changes the statutes of immigration, making illegal entry into the United States a criminal and not civil offense. Within three months, a surge of minor refugees enter the system, and the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) must accommodate these children within shelters. Complicating the ability to prepare for an increase in minor refugees, the Trump administration refuses to acknowledge the policy is in place, and attributes the increase to a now-defunct pilot program of family separations.

In February 2018, a year after the separations policy is considered, major media outlets such as the New York Times and Washington Post report that family separations at the border exist, and they document over 150 cases. In March, the Department of Homeland Security releases to the press that no separation policy exists. Journalists report that ORR holds an informal list of separated minors, totaling over 700. Trump-appointed officials suggest destroying the informal list, but ORR officials understand that the document contains information critical to reunifying children with parents.

On May 5, 2018, Secretary of Homeland Security Nielsen endorses and signs the separation policy. Two days later, Jeff Sessions publicly announces the policy, though separations at the border have already been happening for months. Soboroff visits a children’s shelter, one that houses 1500 children, in Texas, and notes that despite the facilities and activities provided, the living situations feel institutionalized. At the Border Patrol’s Central Processing Center in Texas, Soboroff reports that parents and children are housed in separate areas of warehouse, penned in by high chain link fenced-in areas.

Under public outcry, Trump rescinds the family separation policy by executive order, placing the blame for the policy on the Democrats. ORR must now begin the process of reunifying children with parents, an arduous task since a central database did not exists among the different branches of government, such as ICE, Border Patrol and ORR, and information linking parents with their children is either difficult to retrieve or non-existent.

In all there are over 5,000 children separated from their parents, ranging from newborn to 17 years of age. One such separation is covered in detail, the story of Juan and his 14-year-old son Jose who travelled from their home village in Guatemala to escape death threats from cartel members. Reaching the Arizona border, both are taken into custody. Throughout the ordeal, Juan is sent to a federal prison and Jose to one of the children’s shelters. Juan claims he is coerced into signing legal documents relinquishing custody of Jose and denied access to legal counsel. A federal judge later invalidates the documents. After 124 days, Juan and Jose are reunited.