“You never know what is going to catch your heart until you encounter it, and immigration did that for me,” Jennifer Barrow, then a 3L, said in an interview with BC Law Magazine in 2010. She was referring to her pre-law-school volunteer work with immigrants and refugees in Latin America and at the Texas Mexico border.
Last June, her heart leapt again, this time when she professed her final vows as a Sister of Mercy of the Americas during a ceremony in Merion Station, Pennsylvania. Inspired by the ideals of social justice and Catholic social teaching, Barrow continues to minister as an immigration lawyer at Brooklyn Legal Services in New York.
Barrow says as a kid she had to become her own best advocate. Now she does the same for others.
“I find I have great empathy for people who are suffering because I know a thing or two about working through difficult issues,” Barrow explained. “But there is something about the experience of discovering joy and building character through seemingly hopeless situations that transcends borders.”
Amen.