In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Merlin Biembongo worked at a bank where members of the activist, pro-democracy group, Filimbi, held money. The nature of his job, he says, meant his signature would appear next to theirs on certain forms, although he says he had nothing to do with the organization.

He says that mattered little to local police, who he claims targeted him and his colleagues for their perceived association with the group. Biembongo — dark-skinned, bald, leaning back in his chair as he switches between jilting English and a French translator — says he watched as friends of his, including his own bodyguard, were killed by the police. He fled to the United States on a tourist visa, which he then overstayed, declaring asylum. That was three years ago and, so far, he’s heard little of his application.

In the meantime he struggles. He frames the moment he witnessed the death of his friends as transformative, altering how he moves through the world. Even here in Washington, when he sees police, he's reminded of the men in uniform back home and he feels anxiety rise up in him like acid reflux. On many occasions, he says, it's so crippling he’s considered killing himself. “He’s feeling like he’s dead,” says the translator.

The purgatory of waiting for his asylum application makes it worse. Biembongo cannot convince himself the danger is in the past nor can he fully commit to the work of recovery because it could all be for naught — he says if he’s sent back he’ll be killed as he exits the plane.

“If he gets asylum, he can just try to forget everything that’s happened in the past,” says the translator, Francisco Antonio, who himself was successfully granted asylum after 10 months in the country. “But there’s no guarantee. He can be deported whenever.”

From its low in 2012, denial rates of asylum seekers have steadily climbed, from 44 percent to 62 percent in 2017, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse or TRAC. That number varies greatly by country, with people from Mexico being denied the most, at 88 percent. In the DRC, where Biembongo is from, 45 percent were denied last year.

This comes as legal representation for all asylum seekers has dropped from 24 percent in 2014 to 20 percent in 2017. Without representation, odds of getting denied are 90 percent.

Lundin says her clients have become even more anxious with recent changes to the asylum interview process. In an effort to clear the backlog, the Trump administration said in January that asylum applicants must have their case heard within 21 days, down from 45. But the side effect of that push, says Lundin, is that they can’t put together as strong of an argument.

“There's a lot of evidence and there's a lot of evaluations that go [on] as part of their claim to immigration — this is the psychological effect of torture or this is the medical effect of torture,” she says. “But all of those take time to collect and 21 days to put an entire asylum case together? There's this concern about, will their stories really be able to be represented?”

Beyond the psychological toll, just surviving as they wait is difficult. Cheap housing is scarce in King County, and while asylum seekers can work with a permit, the jobs do not pay well. One man, Tedoro, who came from Angola and has been waiting four years for his asylum application to go through, works sorting recycling. The job has done little to take his mind off the ongoing wait. As Biembongo tells of his suicidal ideations, Teodoro nods and agree. "I'm tired," he says. "It's too long."

As a result of the low pay and difficult housing, Lundin says nearly 75 percent of their clients struggle with homelessness. “There's really nothing we can do because we don't have a housing program,” she says. “And there's not a lot of places willing to rent to our clients because, one, if they're not working they have no income; two, they don't have a rental history; and then three, we struggle to get our clients social security cards.”

And when they do end up on the streets and crime befalls them, as it often does to people without homes, Lundin says they’re sometimes hesitant to call the police or even go to the hospital for fear of deportation. “We've had clients come in here who have just literally been beaten up or are bloody and it’s like, ‘Oh my God, you need to go the hospital. This is insane,’” says Lundin.

The challenges of finding asylum in the U.S. predate President Donald Trump. But his rhetoric of “deportation, deportation, deportation,” as Michael says, plus the news from the border, makes the knot in each of their stomachs tighter.

Michael, who is hesitant to reveal the details of why he fled the DRC and is himself separated from his family members who remain, says he must sometimes tune out. He once went three months without reading or watching the news. “If I stress, I’m going to stress out so bad,” he says.

Real relief will only come if he gets his approval. “It would mean everything.”