After fleeing violence and threats in El Salvador, Valerie Villalta found a new life as a transgender woman and won a kind of protection she didn’t know was possible for people like her: asylum.

Last summer, Alejandro Hernandez Pacheco was almost certain he was going to die being held captive by drug cartels. However, Hernandez miraculously fled drug cartel members that had kidnapped him. Weeks later, he applied for asylum in El Paso.

After twenty-six years of chasing people on the behalf of the U.S. government, finally, I have to ask our politicians this question: How many more people will die until our system fundamentally changes?

"I came here for the security my country cannot provide for me," Marisol Valles Garcia told CNN in a recent interview. "The fear will never go away. What I experienced is a fear that will last a lifetime."