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Translating the Documents in a Vietnamese Asylum File

Vietnamese asylum files rest on documents issued by local People's Committees and on a household registration system that decides where a person officially belongs. This page is about documents and translation.

The People's Committee, and the household book

Vietnamese civil documents are issued by the People's Committee of the commune, ward or district — a local administrative body rather than a national registry, so the issuing authority printed on them is local. Alongside them sits the household registration (hộ khẩu), which records who belongs to a household and where.

See our Vietnamese birth certificate page.

Judicial Record Card No. 2, not No. 1

Vietnam issues two criminal record cards and they are not interchangeable. No. 1 omits expunged convictions; No. 2 shows everything. The US mission in Vietnam does not accept No. 1, and No. 2 is the less common and more expensive of the two — so someone who ordered the cheaper one will be sent back.

That is worth knowing before paying for a translation of the wrong card. See our Vietnamese police record page.

What else these files contain

Alongside civil and household records:

• Police summonses, working papers (giấy mời làm việc) and detention records
• Court documents and judgments
• Church, house-church or organisation documents
• Employment records and dismissal decisions
• Land and property documents, including on eviction or confiscation
• Medical reports
• Declarations from relatives and witnesses

Diacritics are not decoration

Vietnamese marks tone and vowel quality with diacritics, and stripping them changes the word. A name rendered without them is a different name, and the same bare syllable can correspond to several distinct names.

We reproduce the Vietnamese exactly and note a difference from a US record rather than adopting it. See our Vietnamese 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 Vietnam commonly contain evidence recording religious practice outside registered bodies, including house churches and Montagnard communities; political and online expression; land confiscation and eviction; and the summonses, working papers and court records that follow.

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 a page is up to 250 words.

A standard translation is for business or personal use where certification is not needed, such as CVs, client intake forms or marketing material, and is billed at the same $24.95 per page of up to 250 words.

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