PositiveTexas ObserverThe book takes the form of a reporter’s memoir, and operates on one level as a chronicle of how 21st-century journalism works ... Soboroff’s personal recollections add relevant context, but at other moments they seem extraneous ... Such anecdotes, however, are merely the book’s scaffolding. It is built from a thorough account of how such a cruel policy came to be and how it traumatized hundreds of children and their families ... Soboroff...[provides] faces and names to those seeking asylum in the U.S., people often dehumanized by right-wing media and leadership as criminals or invaders. It’s an effective way to bring the broader story home ... The kind of history one might expect from a book about the family separation crisis is plentiful here as well. Using a straightforward chronological structure and a raft of discovered official documents, Soboroff reveals what happened behind the scenes in Washington to enact the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy. To his credit, Soboroff does not spare the Clinton and Obama administrations ... the story is not only one of villainy. Unsung heroes emerge, too ... Separated takes a well-deserved place among the multiple accounts of the Trump administration’s machinations as one journalist’s up-close view of an extremely painful moment in the nation’s history. The book is less interesting as a memoir than as a reminder of the immorality of a government that intentionally caused the suffering of young children and toddlers to coerce asylum seekers to abandon their claims.
