In late 2017, in the name of zero tolerance, President Donald Trump introduced the policy of

separating parents and children who crossed the southern border and requested asylum in the United

States. In all, 5,500 children were taken from their parents, and many were held in detention

facilities, some of which have been constructed by the Obama

administration. Over 1,000 children are still unaccounted for by the federal government.

The program ended in 2018, but only after massive public outcry. The zero-tolerance policy

is the subject of Separated, a new documentary by Academy Award winner, Errol Morris.

Separated has aired on MSNBC and will be available for streaming on December 17th.

I talked with Morris and journalist Jacob Soberoff, whose book on the controversy inspired the film.

We discuss how family separation became policy

and whether it acted as a deterrent.

America's long and ambivalent relationship

with legal and illegal immigration.

Here is the reason interview with Errol Morris and Jacob Sogaroff. Every day there are children who enter the United States

unaccompanied by a parent or legal guardian.

And those children require protection and care to find a family member of theirs in the United States who can take care of them.

Family separation, though, was not about unaccompanied children.

It was about accompanied children. It was about children with their families.

And the unaccompanied children program, which I worked in, was essentially hijacked for a purpose for which it was never intended nor authorized in law.

It was a program designed to be a child protection program for children who entered the United States without parents. And it was instead used as a tool to take children from their parents.

Errol Morris, Jacob Soberoff, thanks for talking to reason.

Thank you, Nick.

...