Motion to reopen: certified translation of new evidence for immigration court

A motion to reopen in immigration court rests on new evidence, and every piece of that evidence written in another language needs a complete English translation with a signed certificate of translation attached. The Immigration Court Practice Manual sets that rule for filings before the immigration judge, and evidence filed with a motion before the Board of Immigration Appeals is held to the same expectation. Since the motion turns on what the new documents prove, an untranslated or poorly translated exhibit leaves the judge with nothing to weigh.

The rules are the same ones that apply to any exhibit in court, and the Immigration Court Practice Manual describes them. What changes in a motion to reopen is the kind of document involved: records created after the hearing, records obtained from abroad after a long wait, and records that were corrected or re-issued. Each has its own translation points.

Motion to reopen evidence that needs certified translation

New evidence in a motion to reopen usually arrives from the country of origin or from a foreign authority, so most of it is not in English. The attorney or accredited representative decides what to attach, and the translation company then handles whatever is in a foreign language. The documents that commonly come up are these:

• A foreign court judgment, such as a divorce decree, a custody order, or a criminal ruling issued after the hearing.
• A death certificate for a spouse, parent, or other family member who has died since the hearing.
• A marriage certificate for a marriage that took place after the hearing.
• Medical records and hospital reports from abroad that document a diagnosis or treatment.
• A corrected or newly issued civil record, such as an amended birth certificate or a long-form copy.

Country condition documents, such as new decrees, news reports, or reports by non-governmental organizations, follow the same rule. A written statement from a witness abroad is translated in full as well, including its heading, signature block, and any stamps. Whatever the type, the court expects the whole document to be translated, not an excerpt chosen by the person filing it.

Certificate of translation for each exhibit

The Practice Manual asks for a certificate of translation that is typed, signed, and includes the translator's contact information. It also needs a statement that the translator is competent to translate from the foreign language into English and a statement that the translation is complete and accurate. A separate certificate for each document is the safer practice, because the court can then match every translation to its source without reading a combined statement.

The certificate carries a date, and in a motion to reopen the date matters more than usual. The motion is built around what is new, so the exhibits should show a clear order: the foreign document has its own issue date, and the translation certificate has its own date showing when the translation was completed. A translation of a record that was already translated for an earlier filing still needs a certificate attached to the copy going into the new motion. The post on immigration court translation requirements covers the filing rules in more detail.

An unreadable seal, a handwritten margin note, or a blank field is also part of the page. The translation marks illegible text as "[illegible]", describes signatures and stamps in brackets, and notes blank sections as blank. Machine translation cannot be used here because it carries no certification and often gets names, dates, and legal terms wrong.

Death certificate and marriage certificate translation for new events

A death and a marriage are the two civil events most often introduced after a hearing. A death certificate translation reproduces the registry number, the date and place of death, the cause where the record gives one, and the names of the declarant and the registrar. Names appear exactly as the registry spelled them, even when the same person is spelled differently in the passport or in earlier filings. Spanish-language records from Mexico or Central America, for example, often carry two surnames, and both are kept in the order the record uses.

A marriage certificate translation follows the same approach. The spouses' names, the date and place of the marriage, the officiant or registry office, and the witnesses are all translated, along with every marginal annotation. Where the original is a long-form record, the long-form version is the one translated. The Department of State's Reciprocity Schedule shows which version a country issues, so it is worth checking before ordering a translation.

Medical records from abroad as new evidence

Hospital records, discharge summaries, laboratory results, and physician letters are often the new facts behind a motion to reopen. A medical records translation has to carry the medical terms, drug names, and dosages exactly, since a changed diagnosis term or a wrong date of admission can look like a contradiction with other evidence in the file. Handwritten physician notes are read and translated, and anything that cannot be read is marked as illegible instead of guessed.

Records from Haiti may be written in French, in Haitian Creole, or in a mix of both within a single page, and the translator must be competent in the language of each passage. A Haitian Creole medical records translation keeps the clinic's letterhead, stamps, and signatures. More on the language is on the page for Haitian Creole translation services.

Showing that the evidence is new

A motion to reopen has to show that the evidence was not available or could not have been presented at the earlier hearing, and the attorney or accredited representative decides how to make that showing. From the documentation side, the point is simple: each foreign document should display the date it was issued, and the translation should reproduce that date without alteration. A record issued after the hearing date proves its own timing, while a record that existed earlier raises a question the attorney has to answer in the motion itself.

Dates deserve attention when the original uses another calendar or a different order, such as the year-first order used in Chinese records or Hijri dates in records from Saudi Arabia. The translation gives the date as it appears and, where the original calendar differs from the Gregorian one, adds the converted date in brackets. Dates written in the month, day, year order are the form a United States court reads most easily.

Exhibit index, pagination, and service on the government

The immigration court expects exhibits to be paginated and indexed, and the motion to reopen is no exception. In a typical packet, the foreign original or certified copy is placed first, followed by its English translation and certificate of translation, with continuous page numbers across the whole filing. The index lists each exhibit by name, so a judge looking for the translated hospital report can find it and the source document next to it.

A copy of the motion and every exhibit, translations included, goes to the attorney for the Department of Homeland Security, and the filing carries a proof of service. When the packet is later corrected or supplemented, as covered in the post on corrected translations and new evidence for the I-290B, the replacement translation is served the same way. The USCIS appeals process works differently, which is why the court side gets its own treatment here.

Preparing the translation packet before filing

Before ordering, gather the original or a certified copy of each new document, confirm the version with the Reciprocity Schedule, and give the translation company clear scans of every page, including the backs. We at Texliff translate each document in full and attach a signed, dated certificate to it, which is how certified document translation for immigration court is normally delivered. The attorney then adds the translations to the exhibit index.