Vol. 37, Number 2 —February 2005

Court Interpreters Feel Impact of Illegal Immigration Caseload

The number of times federal courts used court interpreters jumped more than 18 percent last year. In fiscal year 2004, court interpreters were used in 223,996 federal court events, compared to 189,044 events reported in FY 2003. An event is defined as one interpreter, one case number, one date. Ninety-five percent of interpreted events in federal courts were in Spanish.

In the Southern District of Texas, these statistics are more than numbers to Chief Deputy Clerk David Bradley and senior interpreter Ramon Del Villar. In fact, FY 2004’s increase in interpreting events can be traced, in part, to an increase in petty offense and immigration filings in the Southern District of Texas, primarily in three divisions. It’s an increase of about 34,000 interpreting events; 26,000 in the Southern District of Texas alone, with the remainder spread across the other border courts.

“In 2003, there were 10,679 immigration offense filings in our Brownsville, Laredo, and McAllen divisions,” said Bradley, “and we are projecting our 2004 calendar year filings at close to 17,000 in those three divisions—a 59 percent increase—almost all of which require Spanish interpreting.”

In 2004, court interpreters also were needed in many of the approximately 34,900 preliminary felony matters disposed of by magistrate judges in the Southern District of Texas, up from 32,795 in 2003.

When a party or witness speaks only, or primarily, a language other than English, the Court Interpreters Act requires the presiding judge in a criminal case or in a civil case instituted by the government to use the services of a court interpreter.

“Almost everyone picked up coming across the border needs Spanish interpreting at their initial appearance before a magistrate judge,” Bradley said. “Occasionally, there is a requirement for some form of Arabic, or less commonly used languages, but mostly it’s Spanish.”

The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Department of Homeland Security will do an initial record check on offenders caught crossing the border illegally, and while first-time offenders are usually sent back across the border, second-time offenders are prosecuted. Even with this triage, the caseload and the demands on interpreters can be staggering. The Southern District of Texas has three staff interpreters in Laredo, three in Brownsville, and one in McAllen, but they still need to augment their services with contract interpreters.

“Ideally, an interpreter would interpret for about one hour and take a break,” said Bradley, “ but sometimes it’s 3 to 4 hours—or as long as it takes. It’s nothing to have 80 to 100 people brought in at a time.”

Interpreting under these circumstances is exhausting work, especially 8 to 9 hours of simultaneous, continuous interpreting.

“It’s unbelievable, there’s so much work,” said Del Villar. “Our interpreters sometimes finish their work day at 7:00 or 7:30 p.m. We can anticipate 50 interpreting events, but then with arrests, those events may rise to 100,” he said. “We just have to process everyone. It’s hard, difficult work.”

Increased law enforcement efforts by the Border Patrol are effective in slowing, but not stopping, the flood of illegal border crossings in districts. Illegal immigrants may shift their points of entry from areas where there is strong enforcement to other less closely watched areas in a bid to avoid patrols. Regardless, according to Bradley, “the flood of illegal immigrants never dries up in our district; they’re always slipping through.”

Interpreter Usage in Federal Courts

Spanish remains the most used language for interpreters in the courts, accounting for 212,223 or 95 percent of all reported events in FY 2004. Here’s the FY 2004 breakdown by number of events on other languages
frequently used in interpreting events: