1L Cayla Ebert to Attend State of the Union Address

Visitors to Washington, D.C., often get in touch with the offices of their U.S. representatives to request a tour of the Capitol building. For Cayla Ebert (’18), such a request resulted in an invitation to attend President Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address, which he will deliver to a joint session of Congress this evening.

Ebert is in Washington this week as a volunteer with the Asylum Law Project, a student organization that enables first-year Law School students to spend a portion of their winter or spring breaks doing volunteer legal work for asylum seekers in various locations around the country. Ebert, along with fellow 1Ls Maria Brekke and An Hoang, is working with Catholic Charities in the Washington area to aid immigration and asylum proceedings there. The three students are paired with a staff attorney and will have the opportunity to participate in client interviews, work on client intake, and possibly attend Immigration Court.

Ebert is a native of Plymouth, Minn., which is part of the state’s 3rd Congressional District, represented in the U.S. House by Rep. Erik Paulsen. After requesting a Capitol tour via Paulsen’s Web site, Ebert got a big surprise: the congressman himself got in touch with her by phone. After talking with Ebert about why she would be coming to Washington, Paulsen “told me he had an extra ticket to the State of the Union address and asked if I would accompany him,” Ebert said. “I said yes right away, of course. It’s an incredible opportunity—now I’ll have another lifetime memory on top of the service we will be providing to those seeking asylum.”