"It's not designed as a processing facility, it's designed as an experiment in the active creation of horror", says former migration agent Liz Thompson. The processing facility she speaks of has placed all employees under prohibition from revealing what happened during a protest that resulted in the death of asylum seeker Reza Barati. Thompson decided enough was enough when she and her colleagues were sent back to work the day after they had realised Barati had been killed. "That was the idea. We would go back in and start reprocessing people and show everyone that this was business as usual. That someone has been brutally murdered and it's business as usual", she says. After the dispute, Thompson could no longer face making the same false promises to the detainees, whom she sees doomed as remaining in limbo 'forever'. Seeing that her job was exacerbating the frustrations of the migrants, resigning was the only option. "I don't imagine I'll be allowed back to Manus Island. And - I would not go back because there is no process. There's no process for me to assist people with. It's fake."

Produced by Dateline, SBS Australia