Ana, a 40-year-old mother of two, turned to me visibly anxiety-stricken. An asylum officer had been assigned to evaluate her claim of asylum and determine whether she would be permitted to pursue it in Immigration Court or be deported back to Honduras. Through an interpreter, the officer had asked Ana a question over a tinny, crackling speakerphone.

From our short time together, during which she painstakingly shared details of the most intimate and traumatic events of her life—physical and emotional abuse, marital rape, and threats against her life and her children’s—I knew that she had not understood the interpreter.