Asylum Decision-Making Under Trump: Shared Aspirations for Moral Realignment as a Mechanism of Moral Boundary Work in Times of Crisis¹

The first Trump administration’s sweeping changes to US asylum policy generated profound moral and professional conflict among asylum officers charged with enforcing them. This article draws on interviews with officers who viewed the new policies as violating their professional service missions. I examine how these officers sought to reconcile their actions with their values, thereby redrawing the moral boundaries of their professional community. My findings reveal that officers’ boundary strategies were critically shaped by their ability—or inability—to cultivate a shared experience of crisis and an aspiration for moral realignment with their peers. I develop a theoretical framework that highlights how peer-to-peer interactions serve as mechanisms of moral boundary work, enabling workers to navigate ruptures in organizational identification. By foregrounding this underexplored dimension of interaction, the article contributes to broader understandings of how morality and organizational practice are negotiated in moments of crisis and paradigmatic policy change.