Cool, so I hope we'll just start with, yeah, how you guys first found out about Gua, how did you hear of him?
It's all the details, right?
Yeah, can I start? Oh, yeah, you want to move the hands out?
I'll just put it here because that's okay.
Yep, that's fine.
And feel free to use the markers there.
Oh, yeah, there you go.
Yeah, okay.
So I, probably in 2018 sometime, I went, we both went to a seminar kind of thing at our church
and learned about a Lutheran pastor, we're Lutheran.
And she had been a student pastor and she was from Colombia, right?
Yeah, yeah, and she had gotten deported.
I said, followed her kids' home who were DACA recipients and apprehended her and her husband.
And they had fled Colombia from gang violence and they threatened, she was a teacher at that time in Colombia
and they said they were gonna, unless she got all the kids in her school to join the gangs,
they were gonna kill her and her family, so she fled.
So anyway, she had lived, she came here and her asylum was denied and she, she, the story was just like horrifying.
And then she just overstayed her temporary visa and they just didn't leave after they got denied asylum.
And she had been here for about 18 years or something and she was going to theological school and being a student pastor and their scene.
And ice came and deported them.
And so usually when I hear things, I feel bad and I go home and I feel bad and I might write a letter or something like that
and I thought, this is just stupid. We shouldn't really do something about this.
It's just not the way people had to treat each other.
So we started an immigration team at our church and a friend at church who is a retired law school professor
who worked with Aaron Barbato at the UW immigrant justice clinic.
And she reached out to him because she had this young man who had gotten released from detention and when he was released,
he was gonna go live with his cousin and Bernadine and her, at the last minute, her landlord refused to let her bring him to live with her.
So all of a sudden, their grounds of his release from detention was that he had a place to live with the US citizen.
So she knew our church had housed homeless people in the past.
So she reached out to her former colleague, Ben, our church member and said, can your church help him?
Can he live at church or do you know of anybody that could help him?
And Ben knew that I was doing this immigration stuff and so he said, do you have any ideas?
And I said, yeah, I got a couple. One is the Dane Sanctuary Coalition here in town which is a bunch of different faith communities that help immigrants.
And the other, Ben sent a description from Aaron about Ingois and it was like this two paragraph thing kind of describing this pretty amazing guy.
And it ended and he's delightful as a human.
So when Mark got home from curling, I had sent it to him and I said, should we just have this guy come and live with us?
And Mark said, I don't know why not.
It sounds like he's already been checked out.
So he said, we can have him come here. So that's what happened.
Do you remember the first time you met a good person?
Yeah.
Did we pick him up at the parking, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, we met Maggie and we met the student last students.
Yeah.
And we met him at the parking ride out by Stoughton Road and we went to Perkins.
And after that, because we were hoping to eat with him and we started eating, but he wasn't hungry.
But all of us and they came home with us after that.
So it was the first time we met him.
And the other thing I remember about it was it was just before Thanksgiving and we had planned to be out.
Actually, I think we went to California, didn't we?
Yeah.
To this area, our daughter.
And so he was here about two days and then we left.
But I think Maggie, the student lawyer, helped take care of him, took him to her house or her parents house.
And then when we got back, things really started, I guess.
So when we met him and he was in the Arby's, they let him off this.
After he got released, he went and visited relatives around the country.
He's got several relatives that are Americans, citizens now.
He had gone on a bus trip to Ohio, Columbus, to visit relatives.
And we had already agreed that he could come and live here.
And it's like he's going to go visit these relatives and then he's not going to come here.
And I really wanted him to come and I didn't know him.
I don't know.
But it came back and so we were in this Arby's and I said, are you going to go out?
And then he taught me how to really pronounce his name.
And then I just, when I met him, I thought, oh, this could be okay.
You know?
We gave each other a hug.
Okay.
Good.
Let's go.
So it was just kind of that instinct connection.
Yeah.
That familiarity with each other.
Yeah.
When we went to Eperkins and kind of talked about things and we got here at our house and
he liked Hazel right away.
And then we showed him where his room was going to be and all that.
And then Maggie and Millen and Boston's got ready to go.
And then Maggie said, oh, he's wondering, is this a Saturday night?
It was like 10th or at night.
He said, are you going to church tomorrow?
And I said, yeah.
She said, what time are you going to go?
And he said, can I come with you?
That would be wonderful.
We would love that.
Because already people at our church knew he was coming to live with us.
And so we really quickly discovered how much, very much where we had in common, then had
different, obviously our backgrounds are really different.
But values and belief systems and all that.
We had so much in common.
Yeah.
It was pretty easy.
It's a little bit of a tangent.
Excuse me, the folks that built this house, we actually are just the second orders of
this house.
And they had to developmentally disable daughter.
And so there's a room just down around the corner that is almost like a little apartment.
It's got its own bathroom.
It's got its own sink and all things like that and room for bed.
So that was one of the reasons we thought, well, yeah, he'd been in here real well.
Because she had to move her sewing room out of there for a few years because that's what
she had turned it into after our kids left.
So we're pretty well set up for that.
So have you ever done anything like this before?
This is your first time having someone here.
What were you guys apprehensive about that?
Were you nervous?
Well, it's the first time.
We've never done anything like that before.
We're usually pretty cautious.
So we're actually kind of surprised.
Oh, yeah, sure.
The description we got of him was very impressive.
And so I wasn't terribly worried about it.
He was vetted really well.
And it was really detailed.
And we kind of trusted the UW and Aaron Barbato of bringing a good person.
And so I wasn't, you know, I was a little nervous about it, but it wasn't, you know.
I was more worried about if he was struggling, would we be able to help him enough?
You know, like we newly have been through huge trauma and terrifying situations.
And, you know, if he was afraid or scared, would we really be able to make him feel safe
at home and all that?
And that turned out to be fine.
Did you guys navigate that when, were there situations that came up?
Or did he ever talk about his journey from Cameron?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
He was really, that was one thing that was actually really good about him, is he was really open
about what he'd been through.
And he got used to me asking him, he was just kind of smiling.
Yeah.
No, I'm okay.
I'm okay.
Are you okay?
I think it came from a caring place.
Yeah.
I think it was good for him to talk it out when he was first here.
You know, sometimes it'd be a little hard to draw him up.
But once he got going, like if we got friends over to eat or something and they'd ask about,
he would really start chattering in the way he'd go.
Yeah.
He'd tell us.
And then he'd tell the whole story.
So he wasn't, he wasn't reticent about doing it.
Yeah.
They tell you not to ask people because it makes them relive what they went through,
and it's so hard.
But, so we've, you know, if you want to talk about it, you know, and he didn't want to
talk about it.
So that was good.
So when we worked at church with other immigrants, they say, you know, don't demand their story.
Offer when you're ready, or if you want to, we would love to hear your story.
But only, only if you really want to, because it's hard.
Yeah.
And how often did he talk about his family that was still in Cameroon?
Every day.
It was so hard for him.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, it took a little while to figure out how to get money back to them.
But in fact, we tried wiring through.
Well, we tried it.
Yeah.
Through the, through the wire services, and they all thought we were in a scam and they
wouldn't let us do it.
So, but eventually it got looked out through UW credit union.
We'll give them credit so that he could send money back over.
But he was sending money to support his, his immediate family.
Plus I mentioned.
Plus her family.
Her family.
Plus.
I know at one point he was, he was sending money to an orphanage because there are a lot of
children whose parents have been killed over there.
Because of the conflict and the militias that were going around.
He was supporting a lot of people.
But once he figured out how to do it, one of the things is, you know, we didn't charge
him to stay here.
You know, and we basically, so he, I won't say he'd let a lot of extra money, but, but
it made it easier for him to get his feet on the ground because he had a place to stay
that he didn't have to pay for an apartment or something.
And I think as a result we were, he was able to send, send some money back.
And I don't really know.
I think he probably still is.
But, but it's, so.
So what did you learn about the immigration system with Nwadi?
It's just a mess.
It's completely dysfunctional.
I actually, I worked at the university as an administrator for 35 years.
And I worked with a lot of international students.
And I was not the ultimate authority to get them the visas, but helping them through that
system on a lot of international staff and even faculty.
And so I had some taste of what the system was like.
But the immigration system now is, especially for assightlies and things.
It's just completely dysfunctional.
They don't, they don't have enough support to actually operate the system the way it's
supposed to be done.
And, you know, I don't really want to get into politics too much, but Congress just seems
unable to do anything about it.
And it's just been going on for every location.
I'm willing to do anything.
I'm willing to do anything about it.
And they've had some compromises proposed over the years to try to fix the system.
One of them just recently.
And because of politics, it hasn't gone through.
So I could, I could live with an immigration system that only lets in a certain number of
people.
And this is just my personal opinion.
If, in fact, the immigration system actually worked, but it doesn't work.
I mean, look, he's finally settled and took him, and he had a lot of help.
And it took him over four years to get his family here from when he left.
It's almost five years.
And people say, why don't they just come illegally?
Well, it's almost impossible.
Well, and he did.
Well, go ahead.
You know more about it.
Yeah, so he did inter-legally.
He didn't sneak into the country.
He crossed at a border and asked to come in at a port of entry and all that kind of stuff.
And, you know, people who are undocumented who cross between ports of entry have an infinitely
worse time dealing with everything.
And it's so hard to understand.
And there's nothing fair about it.
You know, you say, yes, you can come in.
You can seek asylum.
Now, turn around and we're going to shackle you.
And we're going to put you in detention.
And we're not going to tell you what's going on.
And you're not going to know where you are.
And we're, you know, and it was a miracle that he was an English speaker and could
understand the guards going down the hall saying, there's some layers here.
If you want legal help and running down the hall.
And saying that to mostly Spanish speakers who couldn't understand what he was saying,
you know.
And there were just so many things that were cruel and inhuman about it.
And I tried really hard to keep up with the law and the regulations as it was going because
it changed so fast all the time.
And it's still like that.
And then, you know, in any other court system, you have a right to legal representation.
And we're so grateful to Aaron's group for supporting his asylum path.
They did so much on his behalf.
I just don't know how people get through it.
It's really difficult.
One of the stories that Gua told us was that when he was being processed, they would put
papers in front of him and say, you need to sign these.
And Gua would go, well, I'm not signing anything until I read it.
And so the immigration officers kind of said, oh, we got one of the smart ones here because
he wants to know what he's signing, which doesn't happen.
But, you know, they do this to, you know, Spanish speaking people that can't read it.
That's what happens.
But the other thing I wanted to mention though, even though I've gone on this, is that another
volunteer thing I do is I drive people to Milwaukee and to Chicago for immigration
hearings and immigration check-ins and things.
And every contact I've had with the immigration officers that work there has just been really
good.
I personally think those people are kind of heroes because they're working in a system,
which is almost impossible.
It's backed up for years and years and years.
And yet, they're sitting there.
I was just in, sat through an immigration asylum hearing just a week or so ago.
And the judge was doing her best to be fair to the person who was trying to get asylum.
And I think they're just working in a dysfunctional system and I don't fault the people that are
working there.
And there's not near enough of them.
There's not near enough of them and they're working hard, but it just needs to be fixed.
Whether it ever happened, I opened my lifetime.
Who knows?
I'm getting up there at age.
Yeah.
I remember what I was telling you also that he didn't even know he was in Wisconsin until
a long time after he was here.
Yeah.
Just put him, he was in the Dodge County Correctional Facility in Juneau, Wisconsin, which is, you know,
up the road towards Green Bay always.
So he, when he called his cousin Bernadine, who he was supposed to live with, was a citizen,
he said, he was telling her, I'm in Dodge County.
She said, I think you're in Wisconsin.
He said, what the hell is Wisconsin?
He thought he was in Chicago the whole time.
He thought he was in a prison in Chicago.
But he said all the transport vehicles and everything, the windows are always black,
so you couldn't see where you were going.
Yeah.
He said it was, it was probably the most difficult part of the jury emotionally for him getting to
Wisconsin.
And the first time being in shackles or being handcuffed, right?
Yeah.
Even through everything he's been through, that it was the mess of the people.
It was so humiliating.
Yeah.
So what would you say to anyone considering sponsoring someone in a situation like yours,
what would your message be to them?
Well, be ready for just about anything.
You will be doing a huge, huge, you will save somebody's life.
You'll give them a chance of freedom and safety.
You can't imagine what they've been through.
I mean, we have so much here.
We can share a little bit, right?
I would say do it.
If it doesn't work out, whoever brought them to you send them back, you know.
But yeah.
Yeah.
It's hard to tell.
I was going to come out.
I mean, having gua in our life now has been a real blessing to us.
You know, we've inherited another family, if you will, or found more family.
And I would also say do it.
I think that, you know, again, we were lucky that he was vetted so well by the UW plus.
He's such an outstanding person too.
And I'm not sure that everybody is going to be in a situation like that.
On the other hand, so many of these people that are coming here are in such bad situations
back in their own countries.
They just want to make a better life for themselves.
So the interaction I've had with other people in this situation, they're just trying really
hard to make a new life.
They're working really hard.
They're doing whatever they can to support their family.
And by and large, I'm sure there are some people that some that come that are not desirable,
but the vast, vast majority are great people.
And they work their tails off, watching my language to make a life here in the U.S.
And what they've been through and what they're going through is just a hard thing.
And so you're really helping someone out if you're able to do this.
Yeah.
This is a question I had earlier to have to ask.
I don't know if you guys heard about the Biden policy that he passed a little bit about.
Yeah.
What was your guys' reaction to that?
Well, I know that we have to get control of the border.
I went to the border in January on a trip that my church sponsored.
It is pretty overwhelming to see people.
I was in El Paso in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
It's also just amazing and inspiring to see the work that the people there are doing to
help the migrants as they're coming in.
I know we have to get control of the border.
I don't believe that limiting asylum is the right thing to do.
I mean, I think there has to be, I know we can't take everybody, but I think there has to be
some reasonable way to give people who actually meet the criteria for asylum, which are really
narrow, and God totally met them, but not that many people do.
There has to be a reasonable way in a process, and we don't have that yet.
And we're not there yet with what has been proposed recently.
And that's why we really need to have a functional system.
I mean, going off on a philosophical rant, I mean, this country was virtually everybody
is immigrants, right?
At least a generation or two back.
And our birth rate is going down.
We need additional people in this country.
And again, I stated most of the people that are coming in are hardworking.
Just want to make a life for themselves.
We need to make a functional system so that we can handle the people that are coming in.
We need to have the people that are running the system need to have enough resources.
And again, this has to come from the political world to do it.
That's, you know, overall we have the resources.
We could do it in the country, but it just needs to be done.
So getting back to the Biden thing, you know, I don't like to see limitations on asylum,
or especially on legal immigration, but this system has to be fixed in some way.
And maybe it's a little bit of a start.
I mean, Congress needs to pass a border policy.
The Biden administration can make all the rules they want.
But until Congress actually passes a policy, then it's not the law of the land.
And it can be undone.
You can do all the executive orders he wants, but it's still not.
And you're probably aware of this.
They had to compromise.
And we know why it got shot down.
Because someone writing for president wants to make it, wanted to use the immigration as a political tool to get elected.
And so, you know, I don't know that I necessarily liked everything that was in that bill, but nevertheless,
at least it was a compromise and it was moving forward.
So I won't even say the names.
Yeah.
And so I think, too, that it's also impacting people, like in law, or in this situation, to how many people who didn't meet those criteria are being negatively impacted.
That's right.
Right, yeah.
I mean, one of the big disappointments is you can't control the border without people, but you won't fund enough people to do it.
You won't fund enough lawyers.
You won't fund enough border agents.
One of the things I learned when I went in January was that the mentality, depending on who was currently in the president's office, the mentality of the border patrol agents changes completely.
It's whether you're recruiting a bunch of people who want to, I heard this from somebody who was working in a welcome center down there.
Do you want border agents who just want to be ramble, or do you want border agents who follow the rules and treat the people with dignity and respect, you know?
And depending on who's the president that changes dramatically.
That's not right.
Yeah.
Is there anything else you guys wanted to add about your experience meeting, while having him move here, the immigration process?
Well, like Mark said, for us, it's been just a huge blessing, and we have new family members, and we're forever grateful for that.
We really hope that our country wakes up to see the values of bringing people here and enriching our culture and the amazing humanity that is coming.
And then I guess the last thing I have is do you want to show off your shirts?
Oh.
Do you guys stand up?
Yeah.
Okay.
So this was a shirt that was given to me by Gua and his family.
I don't know where they got it, but these are the colors of the Cameroon flag, and it shows roots and Cameroon growing into the United States for, of course, the red, white, and blue.
So it's a special shirt that I only wear on special occasions.
Sorry.
You say standing for one second?
Okay.
Yeah.
I'm kind of like being...
Yeah.
Sorry.
Well, no, it's just the cord is kind of pulling, but...
Cool.
Is there other questions you have?
Oh, no.
Okay.
Cool.
That was good.
Thank you.