An Interpreter Whistle-Blowing Opens Discussion on Professional Ethics

A professional court interpreter is trained to follow the ethical canons religiously. The court interpreter has to ensure the official record of the proceedings in English reflects precisely what was stated in the other language by a non-English-speaking witness or defendant and to place non-English-speaking participants in legal proceedings on an equal footing with those who understand English. The interpreter shall not give legal advice, shall not advocate for an LEP person, shall not clarify legal concepts, express personal opinions, display biases, and shall avoid even the appearance of partiality. The interpreter treats the case information as strictly confidential and shall refrain from making public comments. All these core principles were shaken in the last couple months by a whistle-blowing essay, an interview given to The NYT, and by testimony given to the Congressional Subcommittee by a federally-certified interpreter, a professor of modern languages, who, among other subjects, teaches Court Interpreter Ethics at Florida International University, Dr. Camayd-Freixas.

Early last May, Dr. Camayd-Freixas, along with 26 federally-certified interpreters from all over the country was en route to Waterloo, Iowa, having no idea what their mission was about. As it turned out, they were called to interpret in the hearings for nearly 400 undocumented workers arrested on May 12 at a meatpacking plant in Iowa after the largest Immigration and Custom Enforcement ICE raid in the U.S. history. Two hundred ninety seven workers, predominantly illiterate Guatemalan peasants, were charged not with civil violations of immigration law, but with aggravated felony of identity theft and document fraud. During the fast-paced hearings in May, 262 of the illegal immigrants pleaded guilty in one week and were sentenced to prison — most for five months — for knowingly using false Social Security numbers or legal residence documents to gain jobs at the Agriprocessors Kosher meat plant in nearby Postville. It may seem like an unfounded charge as majority of the defendants didn’t speak any English and had no understanding of what a Social Security number was. Moreover, only one Social Security number out of 983 checked by ICE and reported by SSA as invalid or not matching, turned out to be involved in an identity theft. After the hearings were completed on May 22 and a ten-day appeal period had passed, Professor Camayd-Freixas felt compelled to report his account of the proceedings. In his opinion, fundamental principals of the U.S. law and basic human rights were violated during this unprecedented operation.

By June 13, he wrote a 15 page essay titled Interpreting after the Largest ICE Raid in US History: A Personal Account. As he later said in his Statement for the Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law hearing, “I first sent my essay to the court and to the group of interpreters with whom I worked in Waterloo. After proper consultation and several requests, I granted permission to forward the essay to family and friends. Immediately, I began to receive, on a daily basis, scores of e-mails of support from attorneys, academics, other interpreters, and people in all walks of life around the country. Distributed by people over the Internet, in two weeks my essay had been read by thousands, had made it to Congress, and later to the media.”
Dr. Camayd-Freixas gave his testimony to the Subcommittee on July 24.

The full texts of the statement and the essay can be read at http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/Camayd-Freixas080724.pdf.

Earlier, on July 11, The New York Times published an interview with Camayd-Freixas An Interpreting Speaking Up for Migrants (read at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/us/11immig.html). Another interesting reading is a transcript of an interview that Camayd-Freixas gave to a daily TV/radio news program, hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez on July 14 (http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/14/court_interpreter_for_workers_rounded_up)

Camayd-Freixas’s actions are unprecedented in the short history of regulated legal interpreting in the U.S. and open a new chapter in interpreting the Court Interpreter Ethic Canons (pun intended). It is interesting that between early June when the essay started circulating on NAJIT (National Association of Judicial Interpreters and Translators) and early July when the NYT interview was published, there were no comments made by legal interpreters on the ethical aspect of circulating the essay. Taking in consideration legal interpreters are a very articulated, opinionated, and passionate bunch of professionals and rarely hesitate to put their two cents, this silence was especially unusual. Just after NYT publication the heated discussion begun.

In short, the discussion has evolved around two main dilemmas: first, whether Camayd-Freixas’s actions have, indeed, violated the Code of Ethics or had he employed a sophisticated way of bringing public attention to the compelling case while staying within the Code’s guidelines; and second, what should a professional interpreter do if he encounters a situation in which his professional ethic principles are in a clear conflict with his personal ethics and with his humanitarian values?

In his interview with Amy Goodman, Camayd-Freixas stated “Well, first of all, let me say that I’m a professor of interpreter ethics, so I knew exactly what I was doing and how and to what extent I could speak out and so forth. I do not advocate for other interpreters to do this. I think I was in a unique position, where I had the duty to do this, as a citizen and also as an interpreter.

Let me say that I did not break the code of confidentiality. The confidentiality clause in the Interpreter Code of Ethics is designed to prevent the interpreter from affecting the outcome of the case. Now, in this situation, the case was over May 23rd. The defendants had ten days in which to appeal the sentence, and I didn’t even begin writing my essay until the second week of June. So, by that time, not only was the case over and these people in jail, but also the appeal period, the ten-day period for appeal, had expired, so it was a closed case. So, at that point, the confidentiality did not apply any longer.

In addition to that, confidentiality is not absolute. There are other requirements, ethical requirements of the interpreter that override it many times. For instance, if you are a medical interpreter and you find out that a client has tuberculosis or another epidemic disease, and they tell you, “Please don’t tell anybody, because I’ll be placed in quarantine, and I won’t be able to support my family,” well, you have a duty to report it, because it’s in the public interest, and that overrides confidentiality. There was also the requirement for me to notify about any impediment in the legal process as an officer of the court. And that’s why I did what I did.”

Many interpreters consider this case to be “extraordinary circumstances that called for extraordinary actions.” Many others disagree with this statement. If participants of legal proceedings involve LEP individuals will stop count on interpreters’ oath, the integrity of such proceedings is at utmost jeopardy and the interpreter’s status as an officer of the court is completely meaningless.

At this point, the National Association of Judicial Interpreters and Translators has not formed an official opinion on the Postville case. However, real life evolves rapidly. In September, Dr. Camayd-Freixas, in addition to other appearances around the country, will be lecturing at the Rothko Chapel in Houston. The title of his lecture is “On Ethics, Justice, and Democracy.”

This summer, Mahvish Rukhansa Khan, who served as an interpreter for lawyers representing detainees at Guantanamo Bay, published a book My Guantanamo Diary: The Detainees and the Stories They Told Me. Is the “interpret and tell” exercise becoming a common practice before our eyes?