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Translating the Documents in an Iranian Asylum File

Iranian asylum files turn on documents most US readers have never seen: an identity booklet that grows over a lifetime, summonses from courts that do not resemble Western ones, and dates in a calendar that starts in March. This page covers the documents and their translation, not the merits of anyone's case.

The shenasnameh is a booklet, not a page

The Iranian birth certificate, the shenasnameh, is an identity booklet rather than a sheet of paper. Entries are added over a lifetime — marriage, children, and finally death — so a complete translation covers every page carrying an entry, and a submission missing pages is a routine reason to be asked for more.

Alongside it sits the kart-e melli, the national identity card. Both are translated in full, including the seals and the handwritten entries. See our Persian page.

Court, security and employment papers

The documents that recur in these files are the ones an applicant was handed rather than the ones they requested:

• Summonses (ehzarieh) and court notices
• Charging documents, judgments and bail or surety papers
• Employment records, expulsion or dismissal letters, and university records
• Membership or affiliation documents
• Medical and psychological reports
• Messages, letters and photographs submitted as evidence

Solar Hijri dates and name spellings

Iranian documents are dated in the Solar Hijri calendar, whose new year falls around 21 March. Conversion is therefore not a fixed subtraction and is done date by date; a bulk conversion puts half the dates a year out, and in a file where a timeline is being checked against testimony that is exactly the sort of error that becomes a credibility question.

Persian names romanize several ways, and a passport, an older document and a foreign record frequently disagree. We follow the passport and flag genuine differences rather than quietly choosing one.

What the documents in these files record

We do not assess claims and this page does not describe conditions in any country. What we can say is documentary, because it is a fact about paper: files from Iran commonly contain evidence recording religious conversion and minority faith practice; political and student activity; press and online writing; dress and conduct proceedings; and summonses and detentions arising from any of those.

Naming that is useful for one practical reason — the vocabulary of a file decides how it should be translated. A document about a threat is translated at the register the threat was written in; a forensic report is translated without its findings being tidied; a community attestation is named as an attestation and not upgraded into a police record. What any of it means for a case is for an attorney, and asylum is not a filing to make alone.

Translated as written, because credibility is the issue

An asylum file is judged largely on whether the account holds together. That makes a translation unusually consequential, and it makes the temptation to improve things actively dangerous. A vague sentence rendered precisely, a torn line reconstructed from context, a threat translated more fluently than it was written — each of those creates a discrepancy between the document and the testimony that was never in the record.

So: everything legible is translated, at the register it was written in. Anything genuinely illegible is marked illegible rather than guessed at. Nothing is softened and nothing is heightened. Where a document is damaged, partial or a photograph of a photocopy, the translation says so plainly — which is worth far more to the person reading the file than a clean-looking rendering of something nobody can actually read.

One packet, both forums

An affirmative application goes to USCIS under 8 CFR 103.2(b)(3). A defensive one is filed with the immigration court, where 8 CFR 1003.33 and the EOIR practice manual also want the translator's name, address and telephone number attached. Our certification carries both, on letterhead and page-numbered, so the same translation serves either — see what it states. Where one certification needs to cover a bundle of exhibits, it will list them.

Files here name people who may still be at risk. Everything is translated by professional human translators and handled confidentially — never pasted into a public machine-translation tool. What we do not do is advise on the claim, tell you what evidence to gather or assess whether a document helps you. That is your attorney's work, and this is the point in a case to have one.

How it works

Upload a photo or a scan of your document, pick the language pair and check out online. You never have to mail originals: a legible copy is all we need.

A professional human translator, never machine translation, translates the document word for word and mirrors the layout of the original. Every certified translation ships with a signed Certificate of Translation Accuracy that meets the requirements of USCIS, courts and universities.

Your translation is delivered digitally, usually within 24 hours for documents of one to three pages, and same-day delivery is available. If anything needs adjusting, we revise it.

Certified vs. standard translation

A certified translation is a word-for-word translation accompanied by a signed statement attesting to its accuracy and completeness. It is what official bodies require: USCIS, courts, universities and government agencies. Certified translations are $24.95 per page, where one sheet of your document is one page, with no word cap.

A standard translation is the same professional human translation without the certificate, for when you only need to understand the content or for internal or informal use. It is billed at the same $24.95 per page with no word cap.

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