We at Respond Crisis Translation forcefully condemn President Joe Biden’s executive order significantly restricting the ability of migrants who cross the southern U.S. border to seek asylum.

Earlier this month, on March 21, Representatives U.S. Representatives Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Ill.), and Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), and 27 other House representatives called on the Department of Homeland Security to address serious concerns …

By Leila Lorenzo, Laura Wagner, Ariel Koren, Juan Camilo Mendez
Since its launch in October 2020, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has required asylum seekers at the southern border to use the agency’s CBP One mobile app to schedule their appointments to enter the country.

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

While working tirelessly around the clock to provide life-saving translation and interpretation on the front lines of crises across the globe, Respond has also driven coverage on issues of language justice throughout 2023.

Bloomberg Businessweek describes how Respond has become a primary lifeline for many migrants and advocates at the U.S.-Mexico border, especially as private companies contracted by the U.S. government fail to provide adequate translators and interpreters.

Language violence against asylum seekers on the border is increasing.  All asylum seekers are now required to use the government’s new glitchy CBP One Mobile App in order to initiate the asylum process. It is only partially accessible in 5 poorly  translated languages. As our Haitian Creole Team Lead recounts in the article…

By Kate Goldman.
When this photograph of families detained at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas from 2019 appeared in the New York Times last week (on March 6, 2023), my heart sank. I was immediately taken back to 2018 and 2019, to the previous times, when I volunteered on the ground and remotely at Dilley as an interpreter and …

This asylum ban is yet another example of the government weaponizing language to limit freedom of mobility.  Under the proposed ban, asylum seekers must undergo their process via the CBP One mobile app. The app is only available in English and Spanish, in spite of the fact that dozens of languages are spoken by asylum seekers at the border. 

Respond Crisis Translation volunteer Katie Becker recently graduated with a Master of Arts in Global Security and Borders from Queen’s University Belfast. Her master’s dissertation, (In)credible Fear: Linguistic Refoulement and Indigenous-Language Speakers at the U.S.-Mexico Border, was inspired by her work as a volunteer Spanish translator …

Yet Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) imprisons tens of thousands of asylum-seekers and other noncitizens every day, just because of their immigration status. These “civil detention” facilities dotted throughout the United States are notorious for their unsanitary conditions, rampant abuse, violent conduct, negligent and…

As the Biden administration begins to unravel Title 42 and MPP, chaos at the border ensues as asylum seekers struggle to figure out what is happening with changing immigration policies…

Edith Maria Muleiro of the University of Texas at Austin has produced a thesis that highlights the many ways in which interpretation inadequacies make asylum nearly impossible to obtain. She based part of her research on conversations with the Respond Crisis Translation team.

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¨…

Our partner Immigrant Defenders shared good news this week! We are so proud of all of the translators on our Haitian Creole team, led by Krystel Alexandre, for their tireless work to support asylum seekers. We are so happy that our client Josie is finally safe and free…

One of our volunteer translators Kate Goldman today is published in the New York Times where she discusses the urgency of her language access work with Respond Crisis Translation in addition to ICE´s responsibility to …