Language Rights Defense
We intervene to stop language rights violations.
Through our work, the Respond Crisis Translation team witnesses each day that mistranslations lead to life-threatening outcomes in legal, medical, and other life-or-death contexts.
Our team successfully intervened to appeal and win over 25 asylum cases that were previously rejected due to mistranslations and language rights violations:
An Afghan woman’s asylum affidavit was rejected after a machine translation tool mistranslated her case. Our team spotted the error and filed a successful appeal, ensuring that she was granted asylum.
A domestic violence survivor described abuse by “mi jefe”, a Spanish colloquialism referring to one’s father. She was denied asylum when AI mistranslated the term as “my boss.”
Our team led the appeal of the case, allowing her to win her asylum.
Our team intervened when a Brazilian asylum seeker was denied language access and left to die in ICE detention, allowing him to win his freedom from detention and ultimately his entire asylum claim.
Our team is leading policy and advocacy efforts to dismantle language rights violations at the border:
Respond Crisis Translation interpreted a federal court case challenging the constitutionality of the racist “Remain in Mexico” asylum policy. This marked the first time in history that a federal court case was livestreamed in Spanish and Haitian Creole.
Our efforts to educate the public about language deprivation have led to some of the first-ever investigations into the due process violations occurring daily because of language barriers. We have achieved coverage in Bloomberg, Reuters, PBS, Al Jazeera, Teen Vogue, and others.
Our team is spearheading efforts against the language rights violations in the new requirement that asylum seekers initiate their process via the mobile app CBP One:
U.S. reps urge DHS to address major language access issues in the inhumane CBP One app
CBP One’s obscene language errors create more barriers for asylum seekers