Government Fails to Provide Adequate Interpreter for Deaf Ukrainian Asylum Seeker

When attorney Nadia Galash arrived with her deaf Ukrainian client at the Los Angeles asylum office for their second scheduled interview, Galash hoped that this time they would finally be able to move forward.

The woman needed a chain of interpreters — someone who could shift between Russian Sign Language and American Sign Language and a second person who could go between American Sign Language and spoken English. During their last visit, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services hadn’t been prepared to have the pro bono interpreters that Galash had found for her client appear virtually. 

Since then, Galash had calls with agency officials to go over the interpretation needs, she said. She prepared her client a second time and drove from San Diego to Los Angeles for the interview.

Again, they were unable to conduct the interview because the government did not have adequate interpretation and did not allow Galash’s interpreters to participate. This time, the government relied on a contracted interpreter who, the attorney later learned, had his credential revoked last year by the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf. 

“It goes into my client’s due process rights,” Galash said. “It’s a constitutional right to understand the proceedings, what’s happening, what’s going on and for them to tell their story.”

Galash, who works as an immigration attorney for World Relief in Southern California, is among many attorneys who have witnessed incomplete or even incorrect interpretation between spoken languages affect cases. Inaccurate or incomplete translation of details can undermine someone’s credibility during an asylum case, and Galash said she’d seen Russian interpreters missing information in immigration court. She also had to request a new interpreter three times during a visa interview for another client because the interpreters weren’t translating correctly, she said. 

But the situation is even more dire for people needing sign language interpretation because good interpreters are scarce, according to Celena Ponce, who runs Hands United/Manos Unidas, a nonprofit that supports deaf migrants.

Capital & Main is not identifying the Ukrainian woman out of fear it could jeopardize her asylum case. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said that without the name, identification number and date of birth for Galash’s client, it could not comment on the case.

Ponce said that the federal government is required to provide free interpreters to deaf immigrants. But finding one who can actually communicate with a client can be difficult. How much education countries offer deaf residents varies widely, she said. 

“There is no certification in the U.S. for any sign language other than American Sign Language. There is no verification process for ‘how do I know this person actually knows Mexican Sign Language,’ and often in their own countries, there’s no certification process either,” Ponce said. “What we generally see happening in [the asylum office and immigration court] is interpreters saying they know languages that they don’t know.”

Galash’s client filed an asylum application with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services after entering the U.S. with permission, fleeing persecution related to the war between Russia and Ukraine. The agency initially scheduled an interview for February, and through Ponce’s organization Hands United, the woman connected with Galash for free legal support.

After Galash took on the case in January, she met with her client using interpreters over video — a man who could go between Russian Sign Language and American Sign Language and Ponce interpreting between American Sign Language and spoken English. The man is one of three interpreters in the U.S. that Ponce knows of who can do Russian to American Sign Language interpretation.

Both Ponce and the man agreed to appear virtually for the interview for free. Neither live in California, so travel for the interview would be expensive.

Galash tried to contact U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services via an official electronic form to request the virtual accommodation, she said, but the form wouldn’t recognize her client’s case number. Galash said she called and emailed the Los Angeles asylum office to make arrangements, but never got a response.

At the February interview, Galash said, the government didn’t have a Russian Sign Language interpreter arranged so her client couldn’t do the interview. An official gave Galash instructions for requesting to use her set of virtual interpreters, which Galash said she followed. 

The official told Galash that a certified deaf interpreter contracted by the government would need to observe the proceedings as well, Galash said.

The Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf certifies deaf interpreters nationally, and the certification means that the interpreter is skilled in gesture and other communication tools beyond American Sign Language to help understand people who have more limited education in the country’s official sign language, Ponce said.

“We’re more than willing to have a [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services] vetted person sit in and watch,” Ponce said.

Galash’s client received another interview date in March, and the team prepared to spend the day discussing the woman’s fears of returning to Ukraine.

But when Galash and her client arrived, the asylum officer told them that the government had contracted a Russian Sign Language interpreter through Lionbridge, one of the main translation companies used in immigration proceedings, to appear virtually along with an American Sign Language interpreter, Galash said. 

As Galash tried to negotiate for the government to connect to Ponce’s team instead, her client wrote her a message in Russian. The woman said she could not understand the government’s interpreter, Buck T. Rogers.

Galash recalled noticing that her client was visibly upset and shaking.

She said she told the officer that her client wasn’t understanding the interpreter. A supervisor came in, and during the conversation, Rogers said that his skills in Russian Sign Language were basic, Galash said.

When Galash later mentioned the interpreter’s name, Ponce recognized it. He had previously been a certified deaf interpreter through the Registry, but the organization permanently revoked his credential last year due to “unethical conduct in professional practice.”

It’s not clear what specific conduct was involved. In the revocation posting online, the organization listed violations of its tenets regarding respect for business practices and respect for consumers and colleagues.

When asked about the situation, Rogers said in an email that he has foreign sign language credentials from other institutions and that there are court cases pending regarding his credential revocation.

“RID made many mistakes. Today, RID is not in a good place,” Rogers wrote, referring to the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf. “Based on their shortcomings, their decision to revoke one of my credentials was wrong.”

Rogers said the asylum office booked him to interpret “Non-Standard Sign,” not Russian Sign Language. He said he had communicated to the office that his Russian Sign Language understanding was at only a basic level prior to the interview.

Rogers said he and Galash’s client had been able to communicate during the appointment.

“The applicant wanted to use advanced [Russian Sign Language], which I was not able to accommodate,” Rogers said.

Lionbridge, the company contracted by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to provide interpretation, did not respond to a request for comment.

Ponce emailed Lionbridge following the interview to raise concerns about labeling Rogers as a Russian Sign Language interpreter and about his revoked credential. Lionbridge told her that it had informed the asylum office that it did not have a Russian Sign Language interpreter, and that the asylum office then requested a combination of a certified deaf interpreter and an American Sign Language interpreter instead.

“We were advised to proceed with the booking with the understanding that [the interpreter combination] would be the best that [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services] could accomplish in the moment, due to the available pool of foreign sign language interpreters being extremely limited,” the company wrote to Ponce. “We were told that the other stakeholders were advised of this situation as well.”

Lionbridge did not respond directly to Ponce’s concerns about the revoked credential in the email.

During the scheduled interview in March, the asylum officers insisted on asking Galash’s client if the woman wanted to move forward with her interview that day, the attorney said. Galash tried to communicate in writing, and one of the officers insisted that her client instead look at the interpreter whom the woman could not understand, Galash said.

After several hours of back and forth, the officers told Galash that they would reschedule the interview. 

Galash accompanied her client outside to make sure no one tried to detain her. Ponce had arranged for a deaf person to give the woman a ride home.

“I remember she hugged me very tight and she kissed me,” Galash said. “She was trying to say how she’s thankful that I was there with her.”

Galash and her client are still waiting for another date.

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