U.S. Courts have a shortage….of interpreters

(H/T Freedom Folks)

….and the idiot liberals say, “Oh there’s no massive immigration problem!”  Yeah, sure. 🙄

Via USA TODAY:

An existing shortage of certified court interpreters is worsening, court officials say, as law enforcement agencies step up actions against illegal immigrants.

Arrests leading to federal prosecutions and deportations reached record levels in fiscal year 2008, according to an October report by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Wanda Romberger, manager of court interpreting services at the National Center for State Courts, says that almost every state is being confronted with a lack of certified interpreters — who have to pass difficult exams — especially in languages other than Spanish.

“I don’t know of many jurisdictions that would say they have enough qualified court interpreters,” she says. There are about 3,000 certified interpreters, says Isabel Framer, chairwoman of the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators. Only 500, she says, work in languages other than Spanish.

The association did not estimate how many more interpreters are needed, but according to a 2007 report by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, there was a 17% increase in the number of events requiring interpreters in 115 languages in federal courts from October 2006 to September 2007.

Framer says that several cases have been reversed because of poor interpretation. Parastoo Zahedi, a Virginia-based immigration lawyer says she “repeatedly had to reschedule cases because there was no interpreter.”

Administrative Office spokesman Richard Carelli says federal courts provide adequate interpreters for most Spanish speakers, who, he says, represent 95% of immigration-related cases.

However, he says, it can be difficult to find interpreters in some languages. Carelli also says that “finding interpreters for certain indigenous dialects from Central and South American countries has presented problems.”

Nothing to see here, just the United States of America being overrun with Illegal Immigrants. Move along. 🙄