An asylum claim is decided on your testimony and the evidence behind it, and much of that evidence is usually in another language: identity documents, records from the place you fled, medical reports, news coverage. Filed with USCIS, every foreign-language document needs a full English translation and the translator's certification that it is complete and accurate and that they are competent to translate the language (8 CFR § 103.2(b)(3)). Immigration court has its own rule to the same effect for documents filed there (8 CFR § 1003.33).
Evidence commonly translated
- Identity documents: passport, national ID card, birth certificate.
- Records of what happened to you: police summonses, arrest warrants, court judgments, detention records.
- Medical and forensic reports documenting injuries.
- Letters and statements from witnesses, family or organizations.
- News articles and reports about the events you describe.
- UNHCR registration or refugee certificates from a country you passed through.
Partial, damaged and handwritten records
Evidence in asylum cases is often a photo of a document, a faded copy or a handwritten summons. Translate what is there, and mark what can't be read as [illegible] rather than guessing: a translation that says more than the original does can hurt credibility. Where a stamp, signature or seal is present but unreadable, the translation should say so.
Start early
Asylum generally has to be requested within one year of arriving in the US, and immigration courts set deadlines for filing evidence before each hearing. Translations take time to arrange, especially in less common languages, so start them as soon as you have the documents.
With Verdacert
We certify translations from more than 100 languages, including Tigrinya, Dari, Pashto, Rohingya, Somali and Haitian Creole, at the same price as Spanish. Your documents are encrypted, processed only by the service providers on our published subprocessor list, and deleted from active storage on request.