I was asked to obey the law at my government job. I didn’t want to.

My job as a legal secretary for the Montana Department of Labor and Industry wasn’t easy. I juggled a long list of constantly shifting priorities, and if I missed a deadline, we could lose a case. It was also repetitive: updating software, drafting and revising motions, adding court dates to the calendar, scanning documents, opening cases and processing subpoenas. It was tedium compounded by volume.

So I barely processed it when an attorney stopped by my desk one Tuesday afternoon and said, “Keep an eye out for some ICE subpoenas coming in tomorrow.” My brain heard “subpoenas” and “tomorrow,” and I squeezed it into the ever-expanding mental list of tasks to complete.

It wasn’t until I’d gotten home that evening that I fully comprehended what I had been told. Had the attorney really said “ICE subpoenas”? Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency rounding people up for deportation? I knew our department had plenty of data that ICE could use to track someone down, but I still doubted my ears.

After a fitful night’s sleep, I went back to work at 7:30 a.m. and began combing through emails, asking myself what I was going to do if I’d heard the attorney correctly.

I stepped away from my desk to talk to my wife on the phone. “I may be asked to help process some subpoenas for ICE, and I don’t think I can do that,” I told her. I braced myself for A Conversation. My wife was still in graduate school, with 15 more weeks of late nights and frantic scrambling to turn in huge projects while caring for our toddler. We were hoping her master’s would lead to a new job, which could upgrade us from drowning in debt to merely struggling financially. Quitting my job was not in the plan. I prepared to explain that I didn’t want to participate in preparing information for ICE, nor did I want to sign my name to the cover letter I would have attached to whatever I had to put in the mail. But my wife just said, “OK.” We didn’t discuss it further.

I tried to get some work done while I waited for the attorney who had mentioned the subpoenas. By the time he arrived, the nerves that had been nagging me had turned to resolve.

I stood in his office and said, “About those subpoenas you mentioned yesterday.”

“Oh, yes, thank you for reminding me,” he said.

“Actually, I wanted to clarify. When you said ICE, you were talking about Immigration and Customs Enforcement, right?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think I can do that.” From there we had a short conversation, but I had made my decision.

I also spoke briefly to my manager, and after explaining that I couldn’t be complicit in sharing information with ICE, he asked, “So are you quitting?”

“If I have to turn over this information, then yes.”

“Let me make some calls.”

On the way back to my desk, I dashed off a quick tweet. Three sim- ple words. “Seriously, f- ICE.” It was some needed catharsis. I attempted to get some work done, but my heart wasn’t in it.

I’ve always believed in the mission of the Department of Labor. Ensuring people are protected in the workplace and are paid for their work is something I can get behind, but it felt tainted now.

I was asked to meet with human resources, where it seemed as if people were trying to talk me out of what I was about to do.

“You understand that processing subpoenas is part of your job?” “Yes.” I most certainly understood. “And you understand if you quit you will be ineligible for unemployment insurance?”

I found this question a little funny since I had been handling unemployment insurance appeals and fraud cases since 2011, and I was well-versed in what was considered a valid reason to apply for unemployment insurance. I said yes, I understood.

I give credit to the department for how the situation was handled. I was given time to think about it. There were on-and-off discussions about maybe moving me around in the department, or my holding on until I had found another job, but I knew what I had to do.

I went home and picked up my wife. We drove to my in-laws, who had been watching our kid. From their driveway I emailed my manager, formally putting in my two weeks’ notice.