I started up the asylum office in September 2017 and I was an asylum officer for two years. I was asked to do work that I believe to be illegal and immoral. Ultimately I had to voice my dissent and quit. And the asylum program is a scam. I didn’t think of myself as a whistle-blower but I guess, I guess I am. Most victims of gang violence and domestic abuse will not qualify for asylum. Before I sat down and really figured out that it was illegal, I was able to sort of disassociate. It’s just another bad thing that was happening by this administration but it didn’t directly affect me. Trump has proposed charging a fee to process the legal asylum applications. Our country is full. Can’t take it anymore. I’m sorry, can’t happen, so turn around. That’s the way it is. The government is sending them back to Mexico. It’s an expansion of the controversial Remain in Mexico policy. The administration is clearly trying to destroy the asylum program. The standard for asylum was essentially a 1 in 10 chance of being persecuted in your home country. But with Remain in Mexico, the entire nature of the work changed. The level of proof that we are requiring of people to show that they would be harmed in Mexico is much, much, much, much higher. A migrant has to show that it’s more likely than not, through a phone line that’s disconnecting, actively denying them access to a lawyer, not giving them any time to rest, not giving them any chance to gather or produce evidence. Everybody fails. I knew by leaving I was just another individual that was protesting and leaving and making the office that much weaker. So I have guilt I think for that and I have guilt for not pushing the issue further while I was still an asylum officer. I heard stories from other asylum officers where they interviewed people who were literally raped by the police in Mexico and then the supervisors were saying, “That’s not enough.” That you haven’t shown maybe that you can’t move somewhere else in Mexico. So even though you’ve clearly been harmed in Mexico by the government in Mexico, we’re going to say you can still safely live in Mexico. I was both very sad and angry at the same time because what is the purpose of this? It was like this little window into how bad things happen in the world. This is how you get a group of good people that are in a position to try and do good and slowly pivot them to do bad. This isn’t a partisan issue. It is in Congress’s power to stop these illegal activities. I mean, this is a question of who we are as Americans, right? This is a question of whether we continue we continue to shut our door on people in need and to reject individuals that we say we’re going to accept on the Statue of Liberty, or if we embrace the ideal of America that we all want to believe in. We’re just rejecting it, we’re destroying that ideal and we’re becoming the opposite.