Ali, a 25-year-old man from Iran who converted to Christianity, was pursued by Iran's intelligence services and the Basij, a security force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. They searched for him at his old house in a different province. He could not get many jobs because of his tattoos — when he applied at a bank, they refused to hire anyone with a tattoo, so he burned it off. When he returned to the bank with the scar, they refused to hire him because they said he was mentally unstable for intentionally burning his body. He crossed the U.S. border seeking asylum but was expelled to Panama on a military plane without any interview about his persecution.