Proposed Best Practices for Simultaneous Interpreting in Non-Conference Settings

Many in the industry have been following recent developments in the Federal Immigration Courts. The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) has decided to start using simultaneous interpreting during immigration court hearings. While this decision is certainly a step forward in increasing language access for the non and limited English-speaking persons involved in immigration proceedings, the move highlights a conundrum that many in our profession face: how to ensure proper working conditions for the interpreter when simultaneous is the required mode.

In response to concern that this innovation would not be accompanied by necessary changes in work policies and conditions in immigration courts, the interpreting profession has recently made a concerted and unprecedented unified effort to reach agreement on what does constitute "best practices" for simultaneous interpreting in non-conference settings.

Earlier this week, the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters (NAJIT), in collaboration with eight national and international interpreter professional associations representing conference, legal, medical, and sign language interpreters, published a joint statement promoting best practices and proper work conditions for interpreters providing simultaneous interpretation in the immigration court system. You can see the full statement here: http://www.najit.org/Lionbridge%20letter%20pdf.pdf

Today, InterpretAmerica follows suit with our own statement on Best Practices for Simultaneous Interpreting in Non-Conference Settings. InterpretAmerica worked in tandem with NAJIT and the professional association collaborative, to ensure that our position is in full support of the consensus rapidly forming industry-wide.

In what we plan to be periodic statements on best practices on issues relevant to our profession, we share our Best Practices on Simultaneous Interpreting document with the field. It is our hope that this document, along with the effort of other key stakeholders in the field, will go a long way towards defining proper working conditions for interpreters in sectors where these guidelines are lacking or non-existent.

The Best Practices statement can be viewed here:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B7OAPyAQ9PNwVUVmLTgzdEt1b2c


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