{"id":76686,"date":"2025-12-01T13:07:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T13:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/76686\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T13:07:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T13:07:08","slug":"respond-crisis-translation-shows-interpretation-importance-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/76686\/","title":{"rendered":"Respond: Crisis Translation shows interpretation importance | Technology"},"content":{"rendered":"

This summer, Felipe was panicking.<\/p>\n

He was in line for his follow-up asylum interview at San Francisco\u2019s immigration office. But the person he\u2019d asked to interpret the proceedings into Spanish for him had just informed Felipe that they wouldn\u2019t be coming. Due to the ramped-up federal immigration arrests<\/a>, the interpreter was afraid of being detained if they showed up at the office, he said.<\/p>\n

Understandable as that might have been, for Felipe it provoked a crisis. The interview would determine whether he\u2019d be able to stay in the country \u2014 or potentially be detained and marked for expedited removal. Having fled for his life from his native Columbia three years earlier due to threats from armed groups over his organizing and demonstrating on behalf of farmworkers, he said he was terrified of being forced out of the country he saw as his safe haven.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just taken over by nerves,\u201d said Felipe, who declined to give his real name for fear of retaliation. \u201cThis was really difficult for me. I was very, very afraid and terrified.\u201d<\/p>\n

Felipe\u2019s first interview a year earlier had been rescheduled because he didn\u2019t have an interpreter with him, he said. He hadn\u2019t known at the time that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services requires asylum applicants to provide their own interpreters<\/a> and can throw out their cases if they don\u2019t. So, he was in real danger of deportation if he couldn\u2019t provide one this time around.<\/p>\n

Felipe started frantically asking people in line for help before finally encountering Abby Sullivan Engen, an immigrants-rights lawyer with Centro Legal de la Raza. Sullivan Engen gave him the number for a San Francisco nonprofit called Respond Crisis Translation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

RCT\u2019s executive director, Ariel Koren<\/a>, immediately headed over to the immigration office. While they were waiting for the asylum officer to take up Felipe\u2019s case, Koren helped prepare Felipe to answer the officer\u2019s questions. She then stayed by his side during the four-to-five hour interview, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the end of the proceeding, the officer informed Felipe that his file was missing some critical documents providing evidence to support his asylum claim. The officer gave him just 24 hours to submit the paperwork, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some eight to 10 people from RCT scrambled to help him out, he said. They worked all night putting together the documents and even found a psychologist to meet with him to provide an assessment for his file. Together, they were able to meet the deadline.<\/p>\n

Fifteen days later, Koren was with Felipe when he went back to the immigration office. The asylum officer informed Felipe his asylum claim had been approved.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it weren\u2019t for the dedication and the rapid mobilization of this organization, I just don\u2019t even think I would be standing here today with the privilege of having my status here in this country,\u201d said Felipe, whose comments in Spanish to The Examiner were interpreted by Koren.<\/p>\n

Felipe is just the latest person Koren and her six-year-old organization have helped. RCT pairs people in need of spoken interpretation or written translation with those in need of such services. Just this year, RCT has provided language services in 15,000 cases, according to Koren.<\/p>\n

Over the years, the organization has built a network of some 3,000 interpreters and translators around the world who represent 200 languages, she said. Although about half of RCT\u2019s work involves helping immigrants or asylum seekers such as Felipe navigate government proceedings and fight deportation, RCT also provides interpreters and translators to help people navigate daily life, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Its language-service providers help people communicate with potential employers, health-care providers and the schools their children attend, Koren said. It even helped one asylee put together the licensing paperwork she needed to launch her catering business, Koren said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t just do emergency acute language work,\u201d she said. \u201cWe also do long-term accompaniment work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"GOOGLE<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ariel Koren \u2014 seen in 2022 \u2014 said she drew on her time at Google Translate, her work as a crisis interpreter and her sister\u2019s experiences in founding Respond Crisis Translation.<\/p>\n

Geloy Concepcion \u00a9 2022 The New York Times Company<\/p>\n

Koren said she was inspired to found RCT in part by a language-related tragedy experienced by\u00a0her sister, who is deaf and has a mental disability. At one point, when her sister was experiencing a crisis, people nearby called law enforcement because they were\u00a0unable to communicate with her, Koren said. Her sister ended up being arrested, then hospitalized or institutionalized for nearly two years, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Her sister\u2019s health deteriorated during that time, in part because she struggled to communicate with people, Koren said.<\/p>\n

\u201cCommunications deprivation is truly one of the most horrible things that people can go through,\u201d she said. \u201cIt really should be referred to as torture.\u201d<\/p>\n

At about the same time her sister was going through this experience, Koren \u2014 who said she speaks nine languages \u2014 was working for Google Translate. She said that while there, she noted the service was being used by federal government agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol in high-stakes, even life-threatening situations.<\/p>\n

Koren said she felt that was dangerously inappropriate. Google Translate was neither fast nor precise enough to be used in such situations, she said \u2014 and it wasn\u2019t human. It didn\u2019t have the empathy to understand the trauma experienced by people in those positions.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople going through a life-threatening or just any medical situation or … getting the determination of whether or not they\u2019re going to be given asylum \u2014 that should not be happening while you\u2019re using a machine-translation tool,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\n \"Ruth
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For nearly 60 years, the San Francisco Arts Education Project has connected artists with elementary and middle school students throughout The City<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\n \"West
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Kris Politopoulos left a career in tech to open her passion project, Invisible Jet Comics, and didn\u2019t let a fire ground her dream<\/p>\n

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\n \"Button
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

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Owners Ken Griffin, Dan Keenan aim to bring luxury clothing boutique into 21st century while retaining what has made it a Sacramento Street staple<\/p>\n

According to The New York Times, Google said at the time of Koren\u2019s resignation that it prohibits retaliation and that it had investigated her claim but wasn\u2019t able to substantiate it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But on RCT\u2019s board are two other former Google dissidents and whistleblowers who also said the company retaliated against them: AI researchers Timnit Gebru and Alex Hanna.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a coincidence that we have these folks on our board,\u201d Koren said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Koren said that between her sister\u2019s experience, what she observed with Google Translate and her own work as a crisis interpreter, she saw a broad need for language services. She said she also saw how the lack of such services \u2014 or the absence of adequate ones \u2014 was being used as a weapon against those who needed them.<\/p>\n

Not only could asylum seekers have their claims denied if they didn\u2019t bring along interpreters, but mistranslation happened all too frequently. Asylum seekers and immigrants were being pressured to participate in proceedings or sign documents in languages they didn\u2019t understand \u2014 often with life-changing consequences.<\/p>\n

Koren said that in its work, RCT has been able to stop 30 to 40 deportation efforts that were a result of language errors.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving a qualified language worker, a qualified interpreter or translator, is make or break,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt could be the difference between freedom and being sentenced literally to detention, deportation \u2014 and in many cases, that means death,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

RCT provides its language services for free to individuals in need of them. Although some of its interpreters, translators and office workers are volunteers, Koren is adamant that language work is valuable and should be paid for accordingly. And while there\u2019s a dearth of language workers around the world, she said that\u2019s a function not of a lack of talent but economics.<\/p>\n

\u201cSystemically, there is not a liveable industry for translators and interpreters,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"Federal<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

People wait outside immigration court of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office, Friday, Oct. 24, 2025, in San Francisco.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Minh Connors\/Associated Press<\/p>\n

Her nonprofit \u2014 which has 16 employees, including three in the Bay Area \u2014 works with more than 600 organizations around the world. It charges some of the larger organizations it works with \u2014 including UNICEF and the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees \u2014 for its translation services, she said, and it also seeks out grants to fund its work and pay language workers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many of RCT\u2019s paid interpreters are themselves the victims of trauma or in difficult situations. The organization has a large group of people working for it in Afghanistan, she said. Some are former translators for the U.S. forces during the war there who couldn\u2019t find a job otherwise. Others are women who have been excluded from education and other opportunities by the Taliban regime.<\/p>\n

\u201cRespond Crisis Translation became kind of a hub for people who could, instead of whatever they [had been] studying, go into translation work,\u201d Koren said.<\/p>\n

Jane Nguyen said she began volunteering with RCT this summer because she had seen up close how large a barrier language can be. An Oakland resident who came to the U.S. from Vietnam as a child in 1992, Nguyen witnessed her family members struggle to find jobs or even pay bills because of their lack of skill with English, she said.<\/p>\n

In her work for RCT, she\u2019s helped organize events and coordinated translation and interpretation projects. She said she\u2019s also working on translating a children\u2019s book about climate disasters into Vietnamese.<\/p>\n

Nguyen said she\u2019s been very impressed with the organization.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s incredible, very important work,\u201d Nguyen said.<\/p>\n

Sullivan Engen saw up close RCT\u2019s work with Felipe, as well as another case of a migrant who was arrested and threatened with deportation. She said RCT was able to secure her release, and she she came away impressed by Koren, RCT and how the organization approaches language work.<\/p>\n

Koren didn\u2019t just robotically interpret, but was able to highlight nuances in translation that can be crucial in asylum cases, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like she really opened my eyes to this world of interpretation that goes beyond what I\u2019ve seen in the court \u2014 and been so frequently disappointed by,\u201d Sullivan Engen said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This summer, Felipe was panicking. He was in line for his follow-up asylum interview at San Francisco\u2019s immigration…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[33442,14,2778,5751,101,103,102,104,106,105,44309],"class_list":["post-76686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-asylum","tag-immigration","tag-immigration-and-customs-enforcement","tag-nonprofit","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-translation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}