Anna spent 2 years in immigration detention interpreting hundreds of asylum cases for fellow detainees
Anna, a self-taught Russian<>English interpreter, spent 2 years in immigration detention interpreting hundreds of asylum cases for other folks detained with her.
Since her release, she continues to support asylum cases with Respond.
Anna Solodovnikova is a Russian<>English interpreter and translator who spent 2 years imprisoned in immigration detention. She has supported thousands of Russian-speaking asylum seekers with a wide demographic of asylum seekers, including hundreds of transgender people fleeing Russia as a result of the new anti- LGBTQ+ laws. Anna also works with Russian-speaking Ukrainian refugees and people fleeing from all over the former USSR.
Anna has worked with Respond Crisis Translation for the last year and a half, supporting hundreds of clients with attorney consultations, both in and outside of detention, medical visits, and interpreting psychological evaluations for asylum cases.
Anna didn't have a usual path to becoming an interpreter. As a refugee and survivor of human trafficking herself, Anna spent 2 years stuck in an immigration detention facility fighting her case to be able to stay and begin a new life in the United States.
Throughout these two years, she met thousands of women, most of whom didn't speak much or any English. Being proficient in English, Anna started supporting people who would come to her asking for help writing medical requests, kites (official communications with the staff of the facility), and ICE requests.
As she had no money to be able to hire an immigration attorney, Anna started representing herself in front of immigration judge and started to learn immigration laws and precedents. She attended the Legal Orientation Program held by Esperanza Catholic Charities, and soon after started helping the attorney Sarah Zelcer to interpret for Russian speaking detainees. Sarah started referring clients to Anna to help with their paperwork as well.
Anna started helping women prepare their asylum forms, different petitions for the court, BIA appeals, Ninth Circuit appeals and any other documents that are needed in the confines of detention while fighting the cases. She started learning Spanish so that she could help women from Central America who didn’t speak English either but needed help as well.
One of the women detained with Anna was denied her credible fear interview because her interpreter made several errors while interpreting, and the asylum officer attributed those errors to inconsistencies in the woman’s story and denied her right to apply for asylum. Anna helped correct the mistakes and after the woman saw the judge and pointed out all the errors in the interpretation, she was granted the right to apply for asylum. Now this woman is residing in the United States, safe and happy with her husband and now a child as well. She also stopped at least 4 deportations.
Anna continued to represent her case, and after her asylum was denied, prepared BIA appeal on her behalf. At that time a volunteer from Freedom for Immigrants, Barnett Cohen, was able to find an attorney, Jorge Cabrera, who agreed to take Anna's case pro bono after reading her brief. First thing he told Anna was that she can become a brilliant attorney if she wanted to, which was a very high praise to hear for someone who self-studied immigration law and just tried her best to represent herself. The BIA brief was successful and Anna's case was sent back to the immigration judge but once again the relief was denied. Jorge filed another appeal that was again successful. Unfortunately, Jorge passed away at that time.
Another attorney noticed Anna's work and asked her to help with some papers for his clients as well, which Anna was happy to do. That attorney proceeded to take Anna’s case pro bono after Jorge passed away, and following 2 long years in detention, Anna was finally released.
She continued to volunteer to advocate for detained people and their human and civil rights, attending different immigration events and sharing her experiences with immigration staff of Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris (who was just a senator at the time), among others. She translated for non-profits and went to school where she got AAs in Sociology and Paralegal, as well as a Paralegal Certificate.
Anna continued to work with different nonprofits and volunteer with Freedom for Immigrants to help those who need it the most - detained individuals, vulnerable populations and those who are not able to afford the attorney and interpreter. Through her work with Freedom for Immigrants, she was connected with Respond Crisis Translation, where she continues to support
As a form of therapy, Anna wrote a book about her life while being detained on advice of her psychologist, Sarah Schwartz, which will be published soon. After her release, Anna was featured on the Freedom for Immigrants blog, and she wrote an article for the UCLA Law Review. One of the activists Anna was working with, Teia Kane, was inspired by Anna’s life story and made a documentary about her, which became the Official Selection of the New York International Film Awards in 2023. Anna became a community leader and an artist known as Matreshka and helped Chase Steely bring the NFTs2Space project to life, where artists from all over the globe and of all ages sent their art to the International Space Station. She also learned how to dance Bachata and performs at Bachata Festivals.
To this day she continues to help people of all walks of life and always does it from the heart, understanding how slight differences in interpretation and translation can affect someone's fate and life, and knowing that she once was in their place as well.
