'Everybody deserves a fair chance': A conversation with Erin Barbato, director of UW's Immigrant Justice Clinic
In 2012, a group of law students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison saw a need for free legal assistance among undocumented immigrants.
Around 200 immigrants were facing deportation in Wisconsin at that time, but there were few legal resources for them, especially in the Dane County area. In response, the students established the University of Wisconsin Law School's Immigrant Justice Clinic.
In the decade-plus since the clinic was established, the U.S. has seen many changes in immigration policies. Each time, the clinic has adapted to help different clients, including unaccompanied minors, asylum seekers, crime victims and others.
Every month, attorneys from the clinic visit immigrants detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at Dodge County Jail to offer legal advice and occasionally refer or take on their cases.
Erin Barbato, the current director of the Immigrant Justice Clinic, sat down with the Journal Sentinel to talk about the clinic’s work in Wisconsin and across the world. The conversation is edited for brevity and clarity.
Q: Asylum seekers from certain countries are granted asylum over 80% of the time, but those from other countries are granted asylum under 20% of the time. Why the stark difference?
A: There are so many factors that go into that. When someone is applying from a country that’s run by a Communist government the U.S. disapproves of, such as Cuba, China, or Russia, that’s generally going to be an asylum case based on political opinion. And often there’s more evidence that we can present and the judge can rely on to show that an individual will be persecuted or has been persecuted in the past if they were to return to their home country.
But sometimes you get to some of the more nuanced cases, where the persecutor isn’t the government. When it’s individual actors like a gang or another group the government is unable to control, it can be more difficult to have all the evidence necessary to meet our burden of proof and to show they are eligible for asylum.
That often comes with women who are survivors of domestic violence. Those are often difficult cases to prove, but we will still represent people if we believe they are eligible to seek asylum on that ground. It’s just that the evidence the judges can rely on isn’t as available as it is for certain political situations.
Q: What are some of the cases the clinic has been working on recently?
A: A lot of the cases we’re working on right now are for unaccompanied minors and children who are eligible for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status.
Special Immigrant Juvenile Status offers temporary protection against deportation for children who are abused or neglected by their parents. Special Immigrant Juvenile Status requires both family law and immigration law. So the immigration clinic collaborates with the family court clinic at the law school. We will prove that the child is abused, abandoned, or neglected by one or both of their parents, and that it’s not in the best interest of them to return to their home country.
Q: In the Trump administration, any undocumented person could be put into deportation proceedings, regardless of whether or not they were law-abiding. The Biden administration is focusing more on people with criminal charges and convictions. How are the people you meet at Dodge changing?
A: Under the Trump administration, most of the people we met there had benefits (some protection against deportation) that they were eligible for. They were asylum seekers, people with family ties, or people with DACA (people who were brought to the U.S. when they were children). It would be shocking every time I went to see the number of people that needed representation. They had strong claims to remain in the U.S. and often had family ties. Some were employed at certain jobs for a very long time and had no criminal record.
I remember always being incredibly overwhelmed and distraught, and that remains today. But many of the people at Dodge today are there after serving a criminal sentence and are there because they are removable based on conviction for a crime. But they still deserve representation.
Q: For someone at Dodge who may have committed a crime but is also vulnerable in the face of a pending deportation, what role does legal assistance play?
A: Everybody deserves a fair chance, and legal representation is part of the fair chance.
Most people who have a conviction for an aggravated felony are not going to be allowed to remain in the U.S. But certain individuals are from countries that are unsafe for them to return to, and our laws say we will never deport anybody that will more likely than not be tortured or killed. And these individuals need representation because the stakes are so high.
No one is perfect, and our legal system certainly isn’t perfect. But without legal representation, we cannot ensure that people have their rights and have a fair due process in immigration proceedings.
Q: Asylum seekers who are arriving in Whitewater have become a point of national debate. While some are helping the new arrivals, others say they are putting an economic strain on small communities in the U.S. What’s your take?
A: I think that everybody really needs to look at the evidence.
As a human and based on moral grounds, we shouldn’t base our opinions about immigration only on the benefit people can bring to the U.S. But if we want to look at that perspective, our economy benefits from migrants. Our food supply, especially fresh foods, rely mostly on people who have migrated to the U.S. They are mostly supplied by migrant workers who are willing and able to take some of those positions that otherwise we wouldn’t be able to fill with American workers.
In other countries that offer opportunities for people to seek asylum, many times asylum seekers are authorized to work upon arrival. In our system, it takes months and years. I think if people had the legal right to work as soon as they arrived, a lot of the need for government support upon arrival would decrease.
Q: This is becoming a big issue in the political debate as well. How do you think it might impact the upcoming presidential election?
A: Every day, I witness the politicization of this topic. And political parties are taking on the rhetoric to fearmonger in a lot of ways. I find that horrifying and discouraging.
I can understand why these ads and messaging incite fear and why people can be scared by the messaging, even though the messaging is often untrue. It scares me that that’s what we’re doing to people that I work with everyday, who are mostly families and children who’ve become part of our communities.
Q: Tell me more about the work you’re doing in collaboration with others in Colombia.
A: The program is called Safe Passage. It’s a collaboration with Sara McKinnon at the Department of Communications, us at the Law School, and Jorge Osorio at the Global Health Institute.
People often have to take an extremely dangerous journey just to arrive at the southern border to ask for asylum in the U.S. We are looking at whether some alternative, regular routes for migration can be beneficial in decreasing the pressure on the southern border.
There’s so much false information out there for people seeking refuge, whether it's the government trying to deter people from coming to the U.S. or criminal organizations trying to encourage people to come to the U.S. Collaborating with NGOs and universities in Colombia, we are hoping to create a safer network for people to rely on in order to ensure they know their rights, have agency in their choice, and don’t risk their lives unnecessarily.
This includes things like the safe mobility offices the U.S. established in Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica and Guatemala that allow people to apply for asylum and humanitarian parole before they cross the Darien Gap. So people can apply for protection there and fly to the U.S. instead of crossing seven countries, if they qualify.
Through this work, I think we could really change the system in a more humanitarian and dignified way.
Q: With the safe mobility offices established by the U.S., only very specific populations are eligible. For example, in Colombia, only Haitians, Cubans and Venezuelans can apply. What do you think about this limitation?
A: The last time I was in Colombia, there were people from all over the world. There were people from Afghanistan who probably had very strong claims for asylum. There were people from China, and they generally have very high approval rates for asylum. But in order to seek the benefits under the law, they have no option but to take a very dangerous journey.
So I think if we were able to expand the safe mobility offices in these other countries to process applications from other people who could potentially be eligible, we could ensure safety and take pressures off of the southern border. I think that’s something that everybody wants.
Eva Wen is a reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She can be reached at qwen@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Q&A: Erin Barbato, director of the Immigrant Justice Clinic at the University of Wisconsin Law School
