Study: ICE fails to provide detainees with language interpretation required by its own rules

Andrea Castillo, Los Angeles Times, Sept. 5, 2024

"[L]anguage-access failures [are] documented in a report published Thursday that concluded the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency was failing to provide adequate translation services mandated by federal law and its own rules. The report, conducted by the immigration clinic at the Cardozo School of Law in New York, surveyed more than 200 detainees and legal service providers across the country, and reviewed more than 800 complaints from 2016 to 2022 about language-access issues. The information was provided by the Department of Homeland Security in response to federal records requests."

Prof. Lindsay Nash notes:

Key findings include:

• 31% of LEP survey respondents reported not requesting medical care at least once because of a language barrier.
• Nearly a quarter (23%) of LEP survey respondents were explicitly told that they would not be provided an interpreter in the context of medical care.
• 28% of LEP survey respondents who were able to access medical care in detention reported having had to rely on another detained person to interpret for them.
• 78% of legal services providers surveyed reported having clients whose medical conditions had worsened because of lack or delayed treatment caused by language access deficiencies.
• Among LEP survey respondents who needed language assistance at a law library, almost 70% reported never having received it. 
• Over half (52%) of LEP survey respondents reported having had to rely on another detained individual to translate important and often highly sensitive immigration-related applications because they had no other way to translate them. 

Key recommendations include:

• LEP individuals should be safely released if ICE does not promptly provide them with language access services.
• ICE should ensure that facilities create written language access procedures and post translated versions in detention facilities.
• DHS should assign independent officers to each immigration detention facility to focus on ensuring language access to detained LEP individuals.
• DHS should penalize—including terminating contracts of—detention centers that fail to provide adequate language access.
• EOIR should consider ICE’s failures to provide required language access services in setting, extending, and excusing failures to meet filing deadlines.