I was at home with my husband, sitting on the edge of my bed, my phone on speakerphone in hand.
Our little dog, Daisy, barked from the other side of the bed.
We were sitting in our living room with our daughter and son.
We didn’t have any furniture to sleep on.
We had no TV to watch.
I was terrified that our son, a senior at college, would be watching TV at his bedroom window.
I couldn’t stop thinking about how Trump’s administration would change our family.
The thought of his daughters’ schoolwork and the possibility that she would never be able to go to college seemed to make the hairs on my arms stand on end.
I knew that my husband and I were living through the first major crisis of our lives.
The first time I felt like I was going to die was after Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States.
Trump’s presidency began with a shock: I thought I would never see Daisy again.
We thought our life would be forever changed.
He was the first person to come to our house.
I didn’t know the consequences of what he was going through, how his presidency would affect us, how we would see our daughters and son go to school.
I thought we would be able the same as everyone else.
The new president would do nothing to stop the destruction of our country, he said in his first inaugural address.
We had to live with the fact that we were a nation of immigrants.
Trump was inaugurated on January 20, 2017.
I would be working three jobs to support my family.
I could no longer support myself.
I worked at a local coffee shop and a beauty salon to help make ends meet.
I spent nearly all of my time at home, and it was exhausting.
My husband was working three to four jobs.
It was so hard to make ends meets when our house was crumbling.
After his inauguration, I couldn´t sleep at night because of fear that we might not have enough food to eat.
We felt like we were doomed.
The next three years were spent working to rebuild our lives and rebuild our economy, to rebuild the country and to rebuild a better future for our children.
But after two months of living in fear and anxiety, we felt like there was no way we could continue to live.
And it became apparent to me that I couldn`t stop the pain and the suffering that Trump was inflicting on so many people.
When I first became a U.S. citizen, I was scared and angry.
I hated that I had to leave my country.
I had worked hard to be here, but the thought of leaving my family was just too much to bear.
My fear of being deported drove me to seek asylum.
I eventually ended up in a small, private refugee camp, a small refuge for asylum seekers in the United Kingdom.
I have spent more than three years in the UK, mostly in the U.K. It wasn´t until the last few months that I finally felt comfortable enough to come back home to my home country.
The United States has been the first place I wanted to come, but I was afraid to do so, because Trump and his supporters were going to keep me there.
In January, I found out about Trump’s travel ban, which he had signed on Jan. 27.
I began to feel angry.
He has called the order a “Muslim ban.”
I have always supported the president and believe that we should be open to everyone.
But I couldn.
I needed to go back to my country, because I could not go back and be an American citizen.
My family and I had no idea how I would feel.
It had been three months since I had lost my husband.
But in February, Trump released another executive order that was much more severe than his previous order.
Trump did not stop with just banning people from seven Muslim-majority countries.
He also blocked refugees from entering the United State for 90 days.
He ended the refugee program for the next 120 days.
Trump also announced that anyone with a valid green card would be allowed to enter the country indefinitely.
I still felt scared, but as a Canadian, I knew this was a temporary measure, not permanent.
I wanted my husband to be able visit his family.
It is important for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to receive as many refugees as possible.
I am so grateful for what I have experienced, and so relieved to finally be able go home.
I cannot believe that my family and friends will finally be reunited with me.
My wife and I are very proud of the new United States and the way we have come together to help refugees in desperate need.
It feels good to finally see my family in the USA again.
It seems that Trump is going to do nothing.
But my wife and daughter are already planning to leave the