Highlighting our Impact: Partnership with RAICES
"Working with Respond Crisis Translation has been revolutionary for us. Beyond traditional translation, they have also worked with us to innovate, rolling out a voicemail interpretation system to assist clients during the pandemic. They have often provided make-or-break assistance for asylum hearings where deportation is a potential death sentence, translating documents in as little as 1-3 days. [Our clients] ultimately won asylum and were reunited with their families.”
Julia Valero & Aida Farahani
RAICES
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your story?
Aida Farahani: I am pro bono attorney coordinator, mostly working with our Family Detention team based in San Antonio. Being an immigrant from Iran, I moved here in my teenage years. I have always had a passion for immigration law. After law school, I worked in private practices for a few years before joining RAICES in 2018.
Julia Valero: I first became involved with RAICES’ Family Detention team in 2017 as an undergraduate intern. After graduating from St. Olaf College in 2018, I returned to Family Detention as a full time legal assistant in June of that year. In 2019, I became the Karnes Pro Bono Volunteer Manager, and I am now transitioning into an advocacy project management role within the Family Detention team. I dream of someday getting a dual degree in law and social work and continuing to work in the intersection of immigration, prison abolition, and mental health. I am in no rush to return to school, though, as my role in the Family Detention team allows me to do work very similar to what I would hope to do after grad school. Working with Family Detention allows me the opportunity to contribute to systemic justice work, like litigation and public advocacy campaigns, as well as direct legal services with the incredibly badass families stuck in immigration prison.
Can you tell us about RAICES, its mission, and your team? What is your role and what is your day to day like?
The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) is a nonprofit with a mission to defend the rights of immigrants and refugees, empower individuals, families, and communities, and advocate for liberty and justice.
Within RAICES, the Family Detention team’s goal is to end family detention and immigrant detention in general, and in the meantime we aim to minimize the harm families undergo in detention.
The Family Detention team provides legal services to detained, asylum seeking families incarcerated at Karnes family prison under a universal representation model. Historically, ICE has subjected most families at Karnes to expedited removal proceedings, a process in which low level asylum officers can fast track families for deportation without families appearing before a judge. The Family Detention team works with families to prepare them for their interviews, overturn negative interview decisions, and to provide other legal and advocacy services as needed. At times, we have provided direct representation to as much as 90% of the people detained at Karnes.
We form the pro bono division of RAICES’ Family Detention team. Historically, the Karnes Pro Bono Volunteer Manager has recruited, trained, and supervised legal volunteers for week-long service trips at Karnes. While this is no longer a reality under covid, our pro bono work hasn’t stopped, as it also includes coordinating mental health assessments as well as interpretation and translations. The Pro Bono Attorney Coordinator assists with finding pro bono attorneys to take on full asylum cases with families in some of the most vulnerable situations, while detained and post release. The coordinator also provides mentorship support to pro bono attorneys and serves as a resource to the rest of the Family Detention team, particularly when the team takes cases internally through the final asylum hearing.
In what ways has the collaboration with Respond Crisis Translation helped your work or allowed you to do new things that you couldn't have done before?
“Beyond traditional translation and interpretation, Respond has also worked with us to innovate. They have rolled out a voicemail interpretation system to assist with an increased level of non-Spanish, particularly Haitian Creole, voicemails requesting our services under the pandemic.”
Working with Respond Crisis Translation has been revolutionary for us. Respond has helped us translate documents that we simply did not have the capacity to translate before. Respond’s extensive network of volunteers for many different languages and dialects has been very advantageous. Respond has translated documents in languages such as Haitian Creole, Lingala, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Farsi and others. This contribution better equips us to provide clients with services as well as meet tight court deadlines. We also no longer have to turn to friends on Facebook to find a translator for a language out of the usual as was sometimes the case when our team was less well resourced.
Now, when a translation need emerges, we have a support team of professional translators to go to. Attorneys can focus on preparing the legal arguments instead of spending time and resources looking for a translator or translating documents themselves. Additionally, when working with Respond interpreters, we know that they will communicate in a way that respects the client’s autonomy and won’t put us on a pedestal above them. We need to work together with our clients in order to be successful in this work, and Respond’s careful screening and training of its volunteers helps make that a reality that isn’t always present with contracted interpreters.
Beyond traditional translation and interpretation, Respond has also worked with us to innovate. They have rolled out a voicemail interpretation system to assist with an increased level of non-Spanish, particularly Haitian Creole, voicemails requesting our services under the pandemic. Additionally, Respond worked with our legal assistants to develop a Spanish language screening tool for future volunteers. They built out an on-call interpreter schedule for some of our most needed languages. Lastly, they worked with us to assess a client’s language skills in the client’s second language so we could prove to the government why the client needed an interpreter in their native language, a tribal dialect, in their final asylum hearing. We know that Respond is down to be creative with us to best meet the needs of our clients and the team.
Not only does Respond Crisis Translation’s team assist with our workload, but they also approach coordination with understanding of the constraints of our work. Respond doesn’t make our work harder than it already is, which can sometimes be the case when well-meaning people try to support this work without educating themselves on the context of emergency anti-deportation and anti-detention work. Coordinating with Respond has never been a burden nor required undue time and emotional energy from us.
Is there a specific success story (or stories) that stands out for you?
“Respond helped our team translate documents quickly, provided certificates of translation, and was in prompt communication with coordinators regarding any translation issues. Furthermore, Respond translated many documents from English back into the client’s language so that fathers could review their own materials and prepare to testify in court.”
Respond Crisis Translation has provided make-or-break assistance for separated fathers undergoing their final asylum hearings in detention-where deportation is a potentially permanent separation from loved ones they fled with to the U.S. as well as a potential death sentence. ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has separated several families at Karnes in recent months. ICE has done so by releasing mothers and children while sending the fathers to adult detention due to (unfounded) allegations of criminal issues in their countries of origin. This is especially frustrating because in every single case where this occurred, the father’s criminal issue in the country of origin was related to their persecution. So, ICE imprisoned fathers for prolonged periods of time and subjected entire families to separation because of the same persecution that caused these families to flee to the U.S. in the first place.
Because ICE kept fathers detained through the entire process, collecting documents for translation proved difficult. The Respond Crisis Translation team was incredible, translating documents in as little as 1-3 days for some cases when translations were urgently needed in time for court deadlines and our team obtained documents last minute. Failure to submit a document with English translation as evidence in a timely manner can jeopardize a case, leading to deportation. Respond helped our team translate documents quickly, provided certificates of translation, and was in prompt communication with coordinators regarding any translation issues. Furthermore, Respond translated many documents from English back into the client’s language so that fathers could review their own materials and prepare to testify in court.
At one point, a few translators in a row refused to take on a translation due to “political reasons,” which we know means they likely could not take on the translation out of the very valid fear of being targeted in the client’s country of origin for assisting a political dissident. Respond coordinators went above and beyond in signing off on a declaration attesting to the translators’ refusal to take on the translation due to political reasons while ensuring that translators remained anonymous, helping our clients and attorneys be better positioned to explain to the judge how much danger clients faced in their countries of origin.
Ultimately, at least two separated fathers in this situation won asylum. They were freed from detention and finally reunited with their spouses and children in the U.S. This very well may not have been possible without Respond Crisis Translation’s assistance.
What are the greatest challenges inherent in your work? Can you share the language-specific challenges and context that come up frequently?
Detention is psychological torture, and language access (or lack thereof) has the power to both minimize and amplify harm to people in the system. There is almost no semblance of language justice in immigration prison, as access to information is extremely limited, and nearly all people receive information they do get in either English or limited Spanish regardless of whether or not they speak those languages. ICE, prison guards, and prison medical personnel regularly speak to people in English or Spanish even if the person tells officers they speak another language.
If the government or for-profit prison contractors use an interpreter, it is usually a contracted interpreter. Though families have the right to have a non adversarial interpreter in their preferred language and may request a new one if there are issues, the government does not generally inform them of this right. Families at Karnes often report being pressured to undergo their screening interviews in their non-native language, especially if they speak Indigenous or African dialects such as Q’eqchi’ or Kikongo, regardless of whether or not they are fully fluent or comfortable in the second language. Additionally, families have reported innumerable situations where contracted interpreters were hostile towards them while interpreting for interviews or hearings in their asylum cases-meaning contracted interpreters, who operate with little to no oversight, can contribute towards someone’s deportation back to persecution or death. Contracted interpreters are not necessarily even informed of the high stakes of what they are interpreting for; they do not necessarily know that they could be contributing to someone’s death sentence via deportation or continued detention.
When an interpreter pays more attention to one speaker’s words and priorities, key facts in an asylum case may get lost and it can be incredibly difficult for the person on the other end to advocate for themselves when they are unsure if their words were interpreted in their entirety. In our own experience working with contracted interpreters from the legal service provider perspective, we have seen how they at times dote on the English speaker or the person who is already in a position of authority. We have consistently seen how contracted interpreters cut off the non-English language speaker without telling the English language speaker that the other person had more to say. This power dynamic can make providing legal services significantly more difficult, if families feel we as a service provider are not truly listening to them or if an interpreter is rude without our knowledge on the other end. An entire client meeting - and a family’s asylum case - can be prejudiced if an interpreter is not trauma informed or otherwise fails to respectfully do their job. If we, as service providers who are doing everything in their power to be attentive to language and tone when working with a contracted interpreter, consistently face communication issues, one can only imagine what this means when an ICE officer or an asylum officer connects with a contracted interpreter without these concerns on the radar.
Anything else you’d like to add about the importance of language access to your work, or just anything else you´d like to share about yourself / your work in general?
Detention is deadly; deportations are deadly. Getting a document translated to present in support of an asylum claim or finding an interpreter can make a huge impact in terms of minimizing harm for people subjected to the immigration prison and deportation industrial complex.
We deeply appreciate the support we receive from Respond Crisis Translation and its volunteers. If you or someone you know are fluent in a non-English language, you know what to do. If not, we hope you find your own avenue through which to support.
Help us make essential language access support possible for all in need →
Since September 2019, Respond Crisis Translation has fought to provide interpretation and translation services for anyone experiencing language barriers.
