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Interpreters for Immigration Court Hearings

Immigration court provides the interpreter for removal hearings, for the respondent and for witnesses, at government expense. You should not pay anyone to interpret the hearing. What the court does not do is the work that decides whether its interpreter is the right one and whether your witnesses are ready to testify through one. This page covers the rule, and that work.

Immigration court provides the interpreter for your hearing: do not hire one for it

If you are asking whether you need to bring an interpreter to immigration court: no. The Immigration Court Practice Manual says interpreters are provided at government expense to people whose English is not enough to understand and take part fully in removal proceedings, and that the court tries to meet the language needs of all respondents and witnesses. It arranges an interpreter for the individual calendar hearing and, if necessary, the master calendar hearing, using staff interpreters, contract interpreters and telephonic interpretation services (ICPM 3.10). Anyone who interprets in a hearing swears or affirms to interpret accurately, unless they are a government employee (8 CFR 1003.22).

The request is the attorney's or the respondent's job. It should come no later than 30 days before the hearing where it is needed (ICPM 3.10), preferably at the master calendar hearing, by oral motion, by a written "Motion to Request an Interpreter" or in a written pleading. It must name the language, including any variant spellings, the specific dialect, the places where that dialect is spoken and any other languages the respondent or witness is fluent in (ICPM 3.14(o)(1)).

So who books us: attorneys and accredited representatives, for the things the court's interpreter is not there for — finding out what the respondent and each witness actually speak before the request is filed, preparing witnesses to testify through an interpreter, and reading declarations back for the certificate of interpretation. Meetings to prepare the respondent's own testimony are covered on interpreters for immigration attorney meetings.

Get the language right before the master calendar hearing

The court staffs the hearing from what the request says, so the request has to be right. ICPM 3.14(o)(1) asks for detail for a reason: Arabic, Dari and Farsi, Haitian Creole and French, Mam and Spanish, Fulani and Wolof are not interchangeable, and a respondent who gets through a master calendar hearing in a second language may lose much of their own story at a three-hour merits hearing in it. Telephone interpreting at a short master calendar can hide the problem until the individual hearing, when it is most expensive to discover.

An hour with an interpreter in the respondent's language, before the request is made, settles it. The interpreter can tell the attorney which language and variety the person speaks most comfortably, whether they can follow a long, fast exchange in the second language, how their language and place names are usually spelled, and what to put on the request. That is a practical check by an interpreter, not a formal language assessment, and the interpreter does not decide for the court. Do the same for each witness: a mother testifying by phone from the home region may not speak the respondent's second language at all.

Witnesses testify through the court's interpreter: prepare them for it

At the individual calendar hearing every witness, including the respondent, is placed under oath, and an interpreter is provided if necessary (ICPM 3.15(e)). The judge may ask questions of any witness at any time. Witnesses who cannot come may testify by telephone or by video, at the judge's discretion, on a motion (ICPM 3.14(o)(2)–(3)), and hearings by video or telephone conference run under the same rules as hearings in person (ICPM 3.6).

Testifying through an interpreter is a skill nobody has the first time. Answers come in short pieces; the witness must wait for the whole question, not answer the half they understood in English, and stop for the interpreter. Dates, distances and family relationships are where a witness and the respondent appear to contradict each other when they do not. And a witness on a phone line from another country hears a stranger's voice, often with a delay. A preparation session with an interpreter — the attorney asking the questions they will ask on direct, and the kind the government attorney may ask — lets the witness practice that rhythm. Prepare each witness on their own, so the testimony stays their own.

Declarations need a certificate of interpretation

Everything filed with the court must be in English or come with a certified English translation (ICPM 2.3(a)). An English declaration signed by someone who is not fluent in English must include a certificate of interpretation: that the declaration was read to the person in a language they understand and that they understood it before signing, that the interpreter is competent in the language, and that the interpretation was true and accurate to the best of the interpreter's abilities. A translation of a foreign-language document needs its own signed certification, with the translator's address and telephone number.

So the read-back of a declaration is not only good practice; someone has to sign that they did it. Book it as its own session, from the final draft, and tell us when you request that the interpreter will be asked to sign a certificate of interpretation, so the interpreter who reads it back is the one who signs. Declarations from witnesses abroad work the same way by video. Foreign-language evidence is written translation; see certified translation for immigration court.

Booking around a hearing

Most of this is remote: $80 for the first hour per interpreter by phone or video, no travel. A language check for a respondent and two witnesses, each separately, is three one-hour calls, $240. A two-hour witness preparation session by video is $160; with a witness abroad, tell us both time zones. Limited-availability languages — Mam, Fulani, Tigrinya, Pashto and many others — add 25–30%, and the earlier you ask the better. In person at your office is $110 an hour with a two-hour minimum, plus travel at $0.70 per mile from the interpreter's location, confirmed before you book.

For the hearing itself, rely on the court's interpreter and make the request on time. If you want to talk with your client in their language at the courthouse before the case is called or right after, that is a separate booking: two hours in person, $220 plus travel.

By video, by phone or in person

Virtual interpreting runs on Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams, or over the telephone. It is quicker to arrange, costs less and carries no travel charge, and it suits appointments, calls and most meetings.

In person is what venues with their own rules tend to expect, and the right choice when documents are being signed or several people are speaking at once. Tell us the platform, or the city and the venue, when you send the request.

Languages

The standard-availability languages are: Spanish, Portuguese, French, Mandarin, Cantonese, Arabic, Russian, Korean, Vietnamese, Haitian Creole, Polish, Italian, German, Japanese, Hindi, Urdu, Persian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Tagalog, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Tamil, Armenian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Serbian, Bosnian, Somali and Nepali. Every other language we offer carries the 25–30% limited-availability rate. If a language is not on that list it is not because we cannot do it — it is because the pool of qualified interpreters in the United States is small enough that we will not promise a date without checking.

Each language has its own page on what to watch for — dialects, names, dates, who the speakers usually are: see interpreters by language.

What it costs

Rates are per interpreter, per hour, and billed from the scheduled start time rather than from when everyone actually arrives.

• Virtual — $80 per hour, one-hour minimum. Zoom, Google Meet, Teams or telephone.
• In person — $110 per hour, two-hour minimum.
• Limited-availability languages — add 25–30%. Which languages those are is listed below rather than left vague.
• Travel for in-person work — $0.70 per mile from the interpreter's location.

How the travel charge works out

Travel is charged at $0.70 per mile from the interpreter's location, which means you can work it out rather than wait for a quote: a 20-mile round trip is $14, a 60-mile round trip is $42, a 150-mile round trip is $105. There is no separate call-out fee on top.

We will not pretend to know in advance where the interpreter will be coming from — that depends on the language, the date and the venue. What we do is confirm the interpreter and the exact travel figure before you book, so it is never a surprise on the invoice. Virtual assignments carry no travel charge at all, which is one reason most of what we do is virtual.

How booking an interpreter works

• You send the request with the form below: the language, the setting, the format, the date and how long it should last.
• We confirm before you commit: the interpreter, the exact price and the travel figure if there is one. We reply the same business day, and no payment is taken at this stage.
• You confirm, and the interpreter is booked for your date.

What to have ready

The more of this comes in the first message, the fewer exchanges before you have a price:

• The language, the date, the start time and how long it should run.
• Virtual or in person: the platform, or the city and the venue.
• The setting and the subject matter.
• How many people need interpreting for.
• Any credential the venue requires of the interpreter.

Request an interpreter

Tell us the date, the language and the setting and we will come back with the interpreter, the exact price and the travel figure if there is one — before you commit to anything.

Sources

What this page says about the rules was checked against these official sources on October 28, 2026. Rules change; the source is always the authority.

• EOIR Policy Manual, Immigration Court Practice Manual — 3.10 Interpreters (Department of Justice)
• EOIR Policy Manual, Immigration Court Practice Manual — 3.14 Master Calendar Hearing, (o) Other Requests (Department of Justice)
• EOIR Policy Manual, Immigration Court Practice Manual — 3.15 Individual Calendar Hearing, (e) Witnesses (Department of Justice)
• EOIR Policy Manual, Immigration Court Practice Manual — 3.6 Form of the Proceedings (Department of Justice)
• EOIR Policy Manual, Immigration Court Practice Manual — 2.3 Documents, (a) Language and Certified Translations (Department of Justice)
• 8 CFR 1003.22 — Interpreters (eCFR, current)

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