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.