Imagine living every day with the terror that, at any moment, you might be ripped apart from your family, your home, your job, your livelihood, your friends. Imagine feeling as though you have no choice but to risk all of this to report a case of rape or domestic violence. Such is the dilemma for countless immigrant women in the United States: Either suffer silently—often at the hands of husbands or family members—or go to the police and risk deportation.

I’ll start with a simple number: 20,000. Granted it’s rounded up a little—from 19,738. Rounding up works well on the page, but also belittles its subject. It gives us a solid number to latch on to, for the media to print, for the memory to hold. But 19,738 is the exact count of lives that have been lost so far in the war in Syria, according to a volunteer, nonprofit group called Syria Tracker. And when it comes to this conflict, every little number, every single life, counts.