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Translating the Documents in a Mexican Asylum File

Mexican asylum files rest on Registro Civil records and on documents from state prosecutors, and the formats vary by state as much as by decade. This page covers the documents and their translation.

State registries, one national format

Mexican civil records are issued by the Registro Civil of each state, and since the national format was adopted an acta de nacimiento is a printed certified copy carrying a CURP and a verification code. Older actas are transcriptions from the state's books and look entirely different.

Both circulate and both are translated, including the CURP, the book, act and page references and the verification strip. See our Mexican birth certificate page and our Mexican police record page.

Criminal complaints (denuncias) and investigation files (carpetas de investigación)

The documents that recur are those generated by reporting something to a state prosecutor:

• Denuncias, and the carpeta de investigación number assigned
• Documents from the Fiscalía or Procuraduría of the state
• Protection measures (medidas de protección)
• Court documents, and amparo filings
• Medical and forensic reports
• Employment records, and evidence of extortion demands
• Declarations from relatives and neighbours

Two surnames, and what stays in Spanish

Both surnames are part of the legal name and both are carried across in the order the document gives them. Institutional names are kept in Spanish with an explanation — a carpeta de investigación is not an indictment and translating it as one changes what the document says.

See our Spanish page.

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 Mexico commonly contain evidence recording cartel and criminal extortion and threats; violence against women; journalism and human rights work; internal displacement; and the denuncias, carpetas de investigacion and protection measures filed.

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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