Tennessee civil courts lack interpreter funds

The legal needs of non-English speakers and other vulnerable populations in Tennessee are vastly underserved, in violation of federal law.
The Tennessee Supreme Court’s Access to Justice Commission, which is working to fix inequities in the civil courts, has created a committee tasked with improving the system for people with language barriers and those with disabilities.
A shortage of interpreters in the state and money to pay them is one of the most pronounced problems and one of the hardest to fix.
While no hard data exist, judges, lawyers and advocates know anecdotally there are not nearly enough interpreters to go around for Tennessee’s burgeoning immigrant population. For example, there is only one state-certified Arabic interpreter in Tennessee. The shortage can lead to months long delays for people or force them to participate in legal proceedings they can’t fully understand.
The state is particularly short on Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese, Arabic and Somali language interpreters.
The state’s inability to adequately serve foreign-language speakers puts it and other states in violation of the federal Civil Rights Act, according to an Aug. 16 letter sent to the states from Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, and vulnerable to legal challenges.
The Nashville area is home to more than 100,000 foreign-born residents. Spanish interpreters are the most sought after. From 2000 to 2008, only three of the nation’s metropolitan areas saw their Hispanic populations grow faster than Nashville’s, which more than doubled. Few steps have been taken during that time to increase translation resources.
The state started a translation credentialing program, but recruiting participants is hard when practices for using and paying translators vary from county to county.
“I stay very busy, but one of the reasons I stay that busy is because there’s such a shortage of interpreters,’’ said Rob Cruz, an Athens-based interpreter and member of the Disability and Language Barriers Advisory Committee.