Sites of (Mis)Translation: The Credible Fear Process in United States Immigration Detention

Abstract

The credible fear interview presents a high-stakes encounter in the circumscribed legal process afforded to individuals in immigration detention as they seek to claim asylum in the United States. Limited research, however, exists on the sociolegal consequences of translation and interpretation in the asylum process generally and the credible fear context specifically. Our paper advances that scholarship in the context of the credible fear process for detained individuals by focusing on two sites of potential (mis)translation and (mis)interpretation: 1) explaining “credible fear” and 2) transposing individual facts and trauma into the legal categories that United States and international asylum law recognize as forming the basis for an asylum claim.

Keywords: immigration law, asylum, credible fear interview