♪ jeff: good evening. tonight on "pbs news weekend," an american catastrophe. a conversation with journalist caitlin dickerson about her investigation into the trump administration's policy to separate migrant families at the border. >> children were being pulled on one arm by a border trol agent, by another arm by their parent. >> a teenage afghan refugee pursues her dream of becoming a musian, and "be the one you need" author sophia nelson tells me about the life lessons she has learned during the pandemic. all that and more on tonight's

"pbs news weekend." >> major funding for "pbs news weekend" has been provided by -- >> for 25 years, consumer cellular's goal has been to provide wireless service to help people communicate and connect. our customer service teaman help find a plan that fits you. to learn more, visit consumercellular.tv. >> and with the ongng support of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the "newshour." this program was made possible

by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. jeff: good ening. it is good to be with you. we begin with the latest on the fbi recovering top-secret and even more sensitive documents from former president trump's mar-a-lago estate in florida. "the new york times" first reported today that in june, at least onof the president's lawyers signed a letter asserting to the justice department that all materials marcus classified had been returned to the government, but monday's search of the mar-a-lago estate found classified documents. the move could explain why prosecutors cited obstruction in their search warrant. the southern bapti convention is being investigated after an outside report on the church had

mishandled abuse claims and mistreated victims for decades. leaders of the largest protestant denomination in the u.s. said they would fully cooperate, and as the search continues to "grieve and limit its mistakes." the suspect who attacked salman rushdie is a 24-year-old new jersey man. rusty remains hospitalized -- rushdie remains hospitalized. his agent said he is on a ventilator unable to speak. president biden said he and the first lady were shocked d saddened by the attack. democratic senator kyrsten sinema took nearly $1 million in campaign contributions from wall street while killing legislation that would raise taxes on such investors according to an associated press review of her campaign finance disclosure. she forced a series of changes to the inflation reduction act

that would have tax private equity funds, hedge funds, and venture capitalists. a long-term goal of democratic lawmakers. a spokesperson for the senator said the campaign contributions did not influence her actions, and the largest lake in italy is close to its lowest water level ever. it is the latest victim of the severe drought impacting much of europe. the lake's temperature is close to that of the caribbean sea, and its shoreline has expanded to reveal drops. and a teenage refuge reams of becoming a musician, one year after she fled afghanistan with her family, and my conversation with author sophia nelson about the life lessons she has learned while taking care of everyone but herself. >> this is "pbs news weekend" from weta studios in washington,

home of th "pbs newshour." jeff: we take a look at an 18-month investigation into president trump's zero-tolerance immigration policy. we need to te away children -- the secret history of the u.s. government's family separation story. that's the cover story of the latest issue of "the atlantic" magazine. children were separated from their parents with no tracking process that would allow them to be reunited. i spoke with "atlantic's" staff writer caitlin dickerson about her piece. >> the focus was on jeff sessions and kiersten nielsen, the attorney general and homeland secretary at the time, but i discovered the idea came from the head of ice under the trump administration, but he has been in border enforcement for decas. he came up with the idea to

separate families as a deterrent for migration. he first proposed it during the obama administration. at the time, jeh johnson, the former security secretary, said no, declined to proceed. he posed the idea again under trump on it was ultimately approved. jeff: fullback the curtain on the bureaucracy. you say there were factions within the trump administration. the careerists, more moderate types, and then you had the hawks, and then you also had stephen miller, the hardline immigration senior advisor known for espousing white nationalist ideologies. give us a sense of how all those competing groups within the administration were talking about this policy. >> it is really no surprise that people well known for their hawkish views on immigration were pushing for really harsh enforcement policies, including separation of families, but one

of the most interesting things i took away from the story was the degree to which people who held apolitical roles, who had served under presidents both republican and democrat, also went along with zero-tolerance, sometimes without fully realizing it at the time. some of them told me he remembered being in meetings about separating families or about prosecuting parents in a way they knew would require parents to be separated from their children, but they would say it was not strategic at the time to speak up or push back against miller given how much influence he had over the president. others told me they thought the idea was so outlandish that it would never be approved. unfortunately, as a result of that, you have a series of conversations that take place over the course of two years and many discussions and opportunities people had to push back and just did not take those opportunities. that's how policy ends up making it over the finish line and into the implementation stage.

jeff: you also paint a picture of the lasting damage, the trauma that has befallen families. you talked to a 36-year-old farmer from the islands of guatemala who crossed the border with his five-year-old daughter. what did he tell you? >> i met him in 2018 over the phone after he had been deported back to guatemala without his daughter. he was one of many parents who were told that if they agree to their deportation they would get their children back, and of course they did not. reunification did not start in earnest until they were mandated in a federal court case. at that point, many families had already been separated for months. of course now, some families are still separated and haveeen so for years. he was completely inconsolable when we first spoke. it was hard for him to even focus on the conversation we were having because he just wanted answers, you know? he had very little information. his family is living on four dollars a week, if that.

he did not have a tv to get information. he was sometimes relying on radio reports to try to figure out where his daughter was and when he was getting her back and even today when i interviewed him for the story, she immediately burst into tears, and you think about what happened even though so much time has passed. this experience is still with them every day. jeff: as i was reporting from the white house covering the trump administration, one of the things i found hardest to do was to get a sense from border patrol agents who were the ones on the ground actually removing -- in some cases forcibly tearing migrants' kids away from them come from her parents -- how they were able to do that, why they did that, even though it was stated policy. >> would hear very dramatic stories from children and families and then talk to the administration and hear that everything was going very smoothly, very humanely,hat clear communication wasaking place, so you had these two

completely covered and accounts of what was going on. we did not get access to the facilities. we were not allowed to watch what happened. i work hard to get other first-hand accounts of separatis. i eventually connected with a salvadoran consular worker who was based in a processing center in south texas, one of the biggest processing centers in the country. she watched hundreds of separations take place and said she is still shaken today by what she saw, a sea of parents and children being pulled apart, all at the same time in this incredibly chaotic fashion. children were being pulled on one arm by a border patrol agent, on the other arm by their parent, screaming and crying. she says she istill haunted by the sounds of the facility today. she spent a lot of time in the cells where separated children were being held and they would grab onto her legs, grab onto her belt, anything they could to

just beg her for information and ask her not to leave them alone at the end of the day because they were so confused about what was going on and so shocked. jeff: at the end of the day, what does accountability look like? i remember asking then candidate joe biden and he said that the trump administratn for its policy needed to be held to account. so far, the administration has not done that. what they have done is try to reunite as many families as they can, but you interviewed sec. mayorkas. >>e told me that accountability falls to the doj. as you know, the doj has actually been defending family separation in court in civil litigation brought by families seeking damages. there are cases against government agencies involved as well as individual officials, and doj represents both cases. you are really not seeing any

efforts at this point made toward holding accountable those who are responsible, and at the same time, there is no law saying that family separations could not start again tomorrow. the biden administration has made it clear that is not what they plan to do, but there are lots of republican potential candidates in 2024, including president trump, who still believe in this idea and would like to see it reimplemented. jeff: your story is exhaustive. thanyou for joining us. >> thank you so much, jeff. jeff: this month marks one year since the u.s. withdrawal of military forces from afghanistan. since last august, the u.s. has evacuated tens of thousands of

afghan nationals to the u.s. our student reporter tells the story of one refugee who is pursuing her musical dreams thanks to a guitar. >> when i was nine years old, i got interested in playing guitar , but at theime i was living in iran. i did not have thepportunity to own a guitar and play a guitar. in afghanistan, there was not an opportunity at all for me to play guitar. >> when she was 15 years old, her parents received visas to go to the u.s. but she and her brother had to remain in afghanistan. >> there were security problems for me. everything got messed up. everyone was afraid. i was afraid, too. judy: the taliban submit -- cemented their hold on power

today and began to speak in tail about their plans for the country. evacuations of civilians also resumed. inside couple, there is fear and even panic over what the future may bring. -- inside couple -- inside kabul . >> we got the email at 3:00 a.m. telling us to come to the airport without anything except our documents. i was checking my instagram account, and i came across the heartbeats organization. i read their posts on instagram and got to know that they are giving instruments to people interested in music and contacted them. >> the phoenix organization was created by riley novak when she was only a sophomore in high school. >> heartbeats is a youth-let organization dedicated to creating meaningful connections between the refugee community

and our volunteers. i think it is really important when a refugee arrives in the u.s., we acknowledge that they were not able to bring their instruments with them. many of them could only bring one suitcase, so just knowing the emotional benefit that playing an instrument has on someone who is a musician, and i know the relief i get when i play my instrument, being able to give that to someone else is really important. >> the guitar was donated by a local musician. >> music was almost like a mindless activity that i just kind of was going through the motions on. i know for a fact the timing of meeting heartbeats and donating my guitar restart -- three-sparked -- re-sparked my

passion for music. i like the idea of welcoming people that are just coming from wherever. >> i was very feeling good because i have never had a guitar of my own, and this guitar gives me the feeling like this is a place where i can go after my dreams. i will do my best to be good at music, and if i can, i want to do my education in music in the u.s. >> for me, music is a way of healing and more importantly, a way of connecting with people. to me, music is the perfect way to facilitate a friendship. >> i feel very good playing music. i feel freedom. i feel like myself. i can share the music with others and be happy.

>> for "previous news weekend" and student reporting labs, this is alexis schmidt in phoenix. -- for "pbs news weekend." jeff: during the pandemic, we have heard a lot about self-care, the practice of protecting your own well-being and happiness. it has become a mental-health buzzword, but it is arguably more important now than ever. stress levels shot up in 2020 and for lots of peoe never came that down. best-selling author sophia nelson is out with a new book aimed at offering support. it is called "be the one you need." let's start with the book. what did you learn by taking care of everybody but yourself, and what was the tipping point?

>> i got covid twice. i got it in february 2020, which is before we knew what it was, but i was definitely ill, and after the vaccines and all, i got a breakthrough case in august 2021 and when you are sick like that thinking about your life and your mortality -- i had a sick parent that could not take care of herself. she cannot even drive a car anymore. you talk about a whole lot converging at once, and i started asking myself questions like -- what are you doing with your life? do you have a life? are you taking care of you for doing too much for everyone else? for me, the tipping point was getting cold with that first time and being very sick and getting that breakthrough a year later and having to stop and say, what am i doing for me? am i looking out for me while i take care of everyone else? jeff: you're the oldest child, the only daughter, and because of that, the expectation was always that sophia was the one you go to. >> i think a lot of people live that way. and i think the pandemic changed

things. a lot of people were going wait a minute, what about me? in our culture, we are not allowed to do that. particularly african-american women. we don't know how to say i need help or i'm not doing ok, but this applies to everybody, not just african-american women. women are the most guilty, but men are dealing this, too, and men love this book, which is exciting to me because i have a lot of men saying, i feel this, too. jeff: you break the book up into 21 lessons. i want to call out a couple of them. one, you say trust your intuition, it is rarely wrong. >> anybody that has done something that is out-of-the-box, that does things that goes against the grain, runs for office, those people listen to a voice inside. you may have a lot of people going i don't think that's wise or you might want to think twice about that. ask neil armstrong. when you walk on the moon, when

you're the first one that does that, you have to listen to a lot of naysayers, but something inside you tells you you can do it. successful people listen to themselves. they rest, but they listen to themselves. jeff: lesson three is there is shame in not reaching your goals in life. the reason i want to call that out is i speak to so many young people, aspiring journalists, and get the sense that for them, they feel like if they have not achieved their goals by the age of 25, something is fundamentally wrong with them. if they are not an entry-level ceo. >> what a generational shift, right? two young people, let me say, it's all good. you've got a long runway. if you don't reach your goals immediately, it's ok. sometimes they shift. this new generation, like you said, expects be running the place in three years. that's not real.

it doesn't happen. we've got to be -- we got to do a better joben touring as mentors teaching them to be patient and that this is a marathon, not a sprint. jeff: you also talk about what you call radical gratitude. >> i have always been an optimist. i had a tough childhood. i grew up in an alcoholic home. there was violence in the home. someone like me was not supposed to turn out the way i did, but we had a really good mother who was churchgoing and very positive, and i think that gratitude is something she stressed a lot, to be thankful for what we have. jeff: why did you write this book now? >> i'm 55. when you get into your 50's, it is true life changes. you know you're not young anymore. you are not old. you are stuck in the middle. there are things i know now. i don't have to guess. one of the things young people

are having with the isolation, the suicide, all the things we are seeing in spades now is they don't have a sense of somebody saying to them and guiding them. there's a way to do some things. you don't have to do what i did and make the mistakes i made. let me give you a little guidance, a little inspiration, so i hope that by these 21 life lessons i'm saying to people, these are the things i have learned, but i know you are going to resonate with these things because all of us feel it right now. there is something amiss. there's this malaise, this disconnect, and we crave a kindness, a connection, a community that has been missing, and i think our devices have really separated us and divided us, so when i think about how to teach young people that, it is wisdom. i have just lived long enough now. i know some stuff. jeff: the book is "be the one you need" 21 life lessons i learned while taking care of everyone but me.

great to speak to you. >> thank you. jeff: that is "pbs news weekend" for tonight. i'm geoff bennett. thanks for spending part of your saturday with us. >> major funding for "pbs news weekend" has been provided by -- and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

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announcer: my music: '60s pop, rock & soul is made possible by public television viewers like you. thank you for your continued support. ♪ announcer: next, my music in color. ladies and gentlemen, davy jones! [applause] ♪ oh, i could hide 'neath the wings ♪ ♪ of the bluebird as she sings ♪ ♪ the six-o'clock alarm would never ring ♪ ♪ but it rings, and i rise ♪ ♪ wipe the sleep out of my eyes ♪