Of all the policies implemented by the Trump administration, the most outrageous – at least to many critics – was Family Separation. Oscar-winning filmmaker Errol Morris , for one, doesn’t mince words in his assessment of it. “The policy, when you really look at it square in the face, is appalling,” Morris tells Deadline.
“Not a policy of deterrence, not a policy as some would argue of ‘just following the law,’ whatever that means. A policy of cruelty.” Morris’s new documentary, Separated , premiering at the Venice Film Festival later today, investigates the Trump administration mandate that ordered the pulling apart of migrant families who crossed the Mexican border into the U.
S. Parents were detained and sent for criminal prosecution; their children, taken from them, were detained separately (in cages, or if you prefer, “chain-link enclosures”), under the jurisdiction of the Dept. of Health and Human Services.
Some of the children were infants. The documentary is based on the book Separated: Inside an American Tragedy , written by NBC News Political and National correspondent Jacob Soboroff , who spent years covering immigration and the border during the Trump presidency. He serves as an executive producer of the film and appears on camera in it.
“[Trump] certainly allowed, easily — in a way that nobody has ever done before — 5,500 people to be deliberately taken from their parents,” Soboroff says. “And just to emphasize, the American Acade.