Erin Barbato:
It's super common. People that are detained at the Dodge County Correctional Facility here in Wisconsin are from all over the world. Many of them are from Wisconsin and surrounding states. Illinois doesn't have any detention centers anymore, so there are people from many other states who've been living in other states. But also when we are bringing people from the southern border to be detained, they can be from all over the world. We meet people from Afghanistan, from China, from Cameroon, from Cote d'Ivoire, from Venezuela — really all over the world — and they have no idea why they're in Dodge County, Wisconsin, and really where that is. I mean, we're closer to Canada than we are to Mexico, so it can be really disorienting to them.

Jane McCauley:
So since you've been a lawyer, how have you seen immigration policies, people come through — how has that changed over the past five years, past 10 years?

Erin Barbato:
Over the past five years, it's become much more restrictive and all of the policies have become more complicated, especially as they relate to asylum. When Trump became president, it felt like there was very little I could do to represent someone to qualify for asylum. And meeting Ngwa during that time was almost paralyzing because I knew that our laws and our international agreements should allow him to have safety within the United States, and to eventually be reunited with his family. But as it stood the day that I met him, that was impossible.

Jane McCauley:
Going along with the policies, what is your reaction to the Biden executive order that temporarily shuts off access along the border, especially for asylum seekers?

Erin Barbato:
I am not surprised that there is a more restrictive policy that is coming across, even from Biden's office because it has become so politicized, and there's so much misunderstanding about the border. All we do is hear "influx" and "emergency," but we're really forgetting about that this is a humanitarian issue and that as the United States, we have laws that allow people to seek protection here when they will be persecuted or have been persecuted in their home country. And now, we're just blocking that off again for many people that would otherwise be eligible for protections in the U.S. But as a political, the political nature of immigration right now is — I think this is, by restricting things that the border is the only way someone is going to gain popularity with the general population, even though that's incredibly disheartening.