Respond Blog
Several Haitian Asylum Seekers were Granted Asylum following interventions from Respond’s Haitian Creole Team in 2023
Respond Crisis Translation’s Haitian Creole (Krèyol) Team completed hundreds of projects in 2023 – of these, 60 were asylum and/or immigration cases. We also helped mental health professionals provide psychosocial support, worked on several projects related to climate change and environmental justice, and helped recent immigrants access social services and obtain work permits.
Uplifting Haitian voices speaking their native tongue: Respond helps bring sexual violence advocacy to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
Late one Friday afternoon in early March, one of our partner organizations, the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), contacted me with an urgent request: to translate and subtitle a video from their Haitian partner organization, the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) discussing the fight for justice for victims of sexual violence…
Respond Crisis Translation in the news: Language violence is threatening asylum seekers at the border
Language violence against asylum seekers on the border is increasing. All asylum seekers are now required to use the government’s new glitchy CBP One Mobile App in order to initiate the asylum process. It is only partially accessible in 5 poorly translated languages. As our Haitian Creole Team Lead recounts in the article…
Update on the work of our Haitian Kreyol team
We wanted to share an update on the incredible work our Haitian Kreyol translators and Team Leads have been able to accomplish. Thank you to everyone who supported the mutual aid fund which has helped make all this work possible…
California Welcoming Task Force: Rapid Response Translation of Crucial Border Policy Changes
As the Biden administration begins to unravel Title 42 and MPP, chaos at the border ensues as asylum seekers struggle to figure out what is happening with changing immigration policies…
Guides for detainees without access to language and legal support
15 translators and 5 project managers on the Respond team worked for months to translate hundreds of pages of Pro Se materials into Arabic, Bangla, French, Haitian Creole, Hindi, Portuguese, Punjabi and Russian in collaboration with our wonderful partners at Southern Poverty Law Center.
Translating key policy work addressing the needs of undocumented and mixed status families
Respond’s Spanish and Haitian Creole teams will be doing simultaneous interpreting for the release of Embracing Our Strengths, a two-part, immigrant-designed and immigrant-led project to address the needs of undocumented and mixed-status immigrant families through improved state policy…
Our client has been released from Otay Mesa after six grueling months
Our partner Immigrant Defenders shared good news this week! We are so proud of all of the translators on our Haitian Creole team, led by Krystel Alexandre, for their tireless work to support asylum seekers. We are so happy that our client Josie is finally safe and free…