U.S.-Mexico
Border
THE CRISIS
At least 100 languages are spoken by asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border, including Indigenous languages and sign languages. Migrants are more likely to be denied asylum if they speak an “uncommon tongue,” according to researchers from Syracuse University.
Language practitioners are therefore incredibly vital in ensuring vulnerable people can access their basic human rights – yet there is a persistent translator and interpreter deficit at the border and in the U.S. immigration system more broadly. Meanwhile, discriminatory and inhumane rules mean that language deprivation is baked into every stage of the system. As asylum claims can only be accepted in English, and there is no translation support or subsidies, non-English speakers are placed at a systemic disadvantage. Additionally, the Biden administration is forcing all asylum seekers to bring their own interpreters to asylum interviews or else be deported. They are also forcing all asylum seekers to schedule their interviews through the CBP One App which is not translated properly into Haitian Kreyol.
This language deprivation within the carceral U.S. asylum and immigration structure has far-ranging and devastating consequences for people who have often already survived immense violence before and during their arrival at a U.S. border crossing. The U.S. asylum backlog consists of over 1.2 million unprocessed claims; hundreds of deportation orders issued following low quality court interpretations; judges regularly disqualify claims based on language technicalities; thousands are languishing in detention or in procedural limbo because of language deprivation, waiting for months or even years to get someone to listen to their stories; thousands more are forced to participate in interviews and other asylum system processes in languages they do not speak fluently.
Laura St. John, legal director at the Florence Project, recalls a client who did her first interview in Spanish instead of her native Chuj.
She was deported and spent eight years appealing her case because of errors in her file from that first conversation.
“That mistranslation came back to haunt her through the entire proceeding,” St. John says.
OUR INTERVENTIONS
From the beginning of our formation as an organization, Respond Crisis Translation has worked to intervene in the systemic language deprivation that is rampant at the U.S.-Mexico border, in U.S. immigration detention, and across the U.S. asylum and immigrations systems as a whole.
DIRECT SERVICE
We have mobilized interpreters and translators to directly close the language gaps migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers encounter when seeking safety and dignity.
For example, Respond’s intervened in the case of Carlos, an Indigenous migrant from Brazil who was denied access to a Brazilian Portuguese interpreter while critically ill in ICE detention for six months. The partnership between Carlos and his interpreter, Samara Zuza, over several more months contributed to Carlos receiving medical attention and eventually being released from custody.
In another example, a linguist on Respond’s Haitian Kreyol team provided interpretation for young person from Haiti and her counsel at Immigrant Defenders.
“We are proud to share the news that our client was released from Otay Mesa after six grueling months! At 22 years-old, our client Josie fled political persecution from her home country Haiti. When she arrived she encountered a heartless immigration system including an asylum officer who made a negative Credible Fear finding despite the persecution she fled. Luckily the Immigration Judge later reviewed and vacated this false finding. Had she not had our legal guidance, Josie would have surely been deported back to the place she feared the most.
While in ICE custody sadly Josie contracted COVID-19. ICE has been the culprit of over 5,000 positive COVID cases because of their inability to provide a safe place to social distance, adequate soap and sanitizer, nor timely PPE for people in their custody. This is why we say #FreeThemAll. After spending six months in ICE's Otay Mesa immigration prison, Josie is finally free!”
-Immigrant Defenders
These are just a few examples of the direct service work Respond interpreters and translators are leading everyday to help people at the U.S.-Mexico border and in detention centers across the country.
WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
Respond has trained thousands of language practitioners to provide quality, trauma-informed interpretation and translation at the U.S.-Mexico border and beyond, building the capacity of skilled people from communities directly affected by crisis and violence to support others navigating language barriers.
"After I was detained and deported, my Respond interpreters never abandoned me. They fundraised to cover therapy and training. Now I am training to be an interpreter in Kaqchikel. During one of my interpreting practices, I was asked to translate the word “freedom”. The closest translation I could think of is Nq'isamuj' y manq'i pahe tu'j which translates to: “luchar sin detenerse” - “to fight without being stopped”. And that is what I am doing."
- Elisabeth, Kachiqel Interpreter
“Respond created a training for Indigenous community members who had never before accessed professional training. They were able to hone and professionalize their skills. This means that Indigenous language speakers going through court proceedings have, for the first time ever, a qualified and professional interpreter. And, at the same time, there is paid work for the interpreter.”
- Colectivo Vida Digna
SYSTEMS CHANGE
Respond has exposed how language deprivation in the U.S. immigration system is an affront to human rights, and contributed to efforts to demand the U.S. government provide language access through trained, human interpretation and translation to all.
For example, Respond was integral to a congressional effort to push the Department of Homeland Security to address major language access issues in the CBP One mobile application, which all people at the U.S.-Mexico border must use to schedule an asylum hearing. The application is riddled with technical glitches and translation errors, rendering it virtually unusable in languages other than English.
Respond Crisis Translation’s language practitioners has also contributed to new research illuminating the gaps in interpretation within Texas immigration courts.
New Research Illuminating the Gaps in Interpretation within Texas Immigration Courts
Respond has also been at the forefront of expanding language access to to public policy and legal resources by translating the materials such as the following:
Embracing Our Strengths, a two-part, immigrant-designed and immigrant-led project to address the needs of undocumented and mixed-status immigrant families through improved state policy addressing the needs of undocumented and mixed status families (read more)
Guides for detainees without access to language and legal support (read more)
When I asked Elizabeth the word for freedom in Kaqchikel, her native Mayan language spoken in Guatemala , she told me there is no direct equivalent. She provided her own poetic translation: Nq'isamuj' y manq'i pahe tu'j which translates to: “luchar sin detenerse” - ¨to fight without being stopped¨…