From Problems of Living to Problems of Law: The Legal Translation and Documentation of Immigrant Abuse and Helpfulness

Abstract

To apply for U Visa status, a temporary legal standing available to undocumented crime victims who assist law enforcement in investigations, immigrants must obtain validation of their experiences from police via a signed “certification” paper. This article investigates the challenges lawyers and immigrant crime victims face in translating and documenting victims' experiences into legal form. By analyzing interactions between Los Angeles attorneys and female undocumented immigrants, I explore how immigrant victims of violence prepare to approach police certifiers. Attorneys arbitrate between accounts of violence and immigrant‐police encounters and the legal cases they can develop, offering retrospective and prospective advice to immigrants about how to make effective pleas to police. Drawing attention to the devolutionary dynamics of an inclusive immigration policy, I show how nonfederal bureaucrats shape immigrants' eligibility for legalization remedies. In turn, I expose detrimental consequences of mixing street‐level administrative discretion with federal visa eligibility determinations.

The Influence of Studying Legal Course in the Progress of Translation Students' Performance in Translating English Legal Sentences into Arabic at Jadara University in Jordan

“…Since the area where legal translators can be creative is limited to the non-standardized legal texts, the practical examples and illustrations chosen belong to persuasive legal language. Lakhani (2014) writes an article that investigates the challenges lawyers and immigrant crime victims' face in translating and documenting victims' experiences into legal form. By analyzing interactions between Los Angeles attorneys and female undocumented immigrants, I explore how immigrant victims of violence prepare to approach police certifiers.…”

It takes more than translating a flier: Considerations in serving immigrants as victims of crime in a large Midwestern city

“…The victim of crime may know the interpreter, causing shame and confidentiality concerns (Shively et al, 2014). Furthermore, it has been suggested that previous experience in their original countries or in the United States with corrupt, and what they perceive to be ineffective police may limit their willingness to seek help from law enforcement and the range of social service providing agencies (Cantor & Johnson, 2016;Davis & Erez, 1998;Lakhani, 2014). Not only does the failure to report crime demonstrate that immigrants may be receiving inadequate support when they are victims of crimes, it also provides the perpetrators with a high level of impunity, as they remain unpunished for the crimes they committed (Burman & Chantler, 2005;Davis & Erez, 1998).…”

“…Service providing agencies that serve victims of crime face key challenges related to the above. The blanket term "immigrants" captures enormous linguistic, cultural, economic, and legal status diversity (Bhuyan & Senturia, 2005;Lakhani, 2014). Each of these comes with unique needs and barriers that a population faces when accessing services when they have become a victim of crime.…”

Relieving the Tension: Lay Immigration Lawyering and the Management of Legal Violence

“…To my knowledge, no empirical work assessing the Program has been published to date, which is especially significant, as Mark Noferi (2013) observes, because “In the coming decade, the U.S. Supreme Court will not only likely consider the right to a lawyer in immigration proceedings, but as a fallback, the right to a non ‐lawyer representative.” The implications of this research also extend beyond immigration. Even though we have been seeing an increasing reliance on “lay lawyers” (Batlan ) in a variety of realms (e.g., Levin ), scholarship on this group remains on the periphery of socio‐legal studies (but see, e.g., Batlan ; Ossei‐Owusu ), with research on the legal profession in particular focusing almost exclusively on “traditional” attorneys.…”

“…Typically, debates about lay lawyering – in immigration (e.g., Medina ; Shannon ), as well as more broadly (e.g., Charn –2013; Levin ; Rhode ) – are centered around a narrow conception of “effectiveness.” Will non‐lawyer practitioners “win” as often as their professional counterparts will? Do they have sufficient skills to handle high‐stakes cases?…”