My forthcoming book of creative nonfiction, THE FIRST SOLUTION, began as a document of the extraordinary actions of ordinary people to push back against the anti-immigrant agenda of the Trump administration. What I came to discover in charting their journeys, however, is that the crimes committed against asylum seekers did not start with Trump, and they refuse to die along with his big lie. Indeed, the US immigration system has long been cruel, further traumatizing to the already traumatized, and resulting all too frequently in returning those with a legitimate need for protection to persecution and death — a silent, unrelenting genocide. THE FIRST SOLUTION seeks to humanize the immigration discussion by shining a light on the folks flying the tattered flag of American values against the longest of odds: an increasingly militarized “security” apparatus intended to keep people out. My collected accounts of these first-responders combine the oral storytelling tradition of Studs Terkel with Joan Didion-esque New Journalism to tell the tragic tale of the modern Americas. My hope is that readers will see themselves in my protagonists and be motivated to take action — as I was.