Respond on NPR’s KJZZ: Biden’s “impossible” rule that asylum seekers bring their own interpreters
Respond’s founder and executive director Ariel Koren joined KJZZ, the National Public Radio member station in Phoenix, Arizona, to talk about a new rule requiring asylum seekers to bring their own interpreters during USCIS interviews – a cruel linguistic deprivation when few asylum seekers have the resources required to find qualified interpreters.
“The requirement that affirmative asylum applicants must provide their own interpreters … is a true violation of the basic human right to language access and to communication,” Ariel told KJZZ.
President Joe Biden reverted to the Trump-era U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) rule last September. The rule states: "If you need an interpreter and do not bring one, or if your interpreter is not fluent in English and a language you speak, and you do not establish good cause, we may consider this a failure to appear for your interview and we may dismiss your asylum application or refer your asylum application to an immigration judge. We will determine good cause on a case-by-case-basis."
But asylum seekers are often the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, having survived and fled extreme violence and trauma. They often arrive with NO access to money, resources, or networks. And when they are held in detention centers, as many are, these circumstances are compounded, as their access to phones, the internet, and the outside world more broadly is totally restricted.
“It is essentially impossible for people to be able to source their own interpreters,” Ariel said.
No regulations exist to prevent errors from endangering asylum cases, to track violations, or to seek justice for survivors.
Biden’s rule represents more than just a failure of the government to provide a service – “the government is weaponizing language as a tool to keep asylum seekers from being able to have access.”
