Translation and Interpreting Services in New Orleans

Wherever you are in New Orleans, Prism Language Solutions can certify a translation and return it by email, and it books court, medical and immigration interpreters from a nationwide network, with a Louisiana-based linguist for in-person work wherever one can be matched and phone or video for the rest. The company keeps one office, in New York. Spanish is the largest part of the New Orleans work and Vietnamese the second, which reflects two communities with deep roots here: Central Americans tied to the city’s old banana trade, and the Vietnamese families of New Orleans East.

The 2020-2024 American Community Survey estimates that about 35,700 New Orleans residents aged five and older, 10.2 percent, speak a language other than English at home. Spanish accounts for about 18,600. French, Haitian or Cajun and Vietnamese follow at about 4,400 each, but the two groups are not alike: roughly 600 of the French-group speakers report limited English, against about 2,450 of the Vietnamese speakers, more than half. In practice, that makes a Vietnamese interpreter the second most useful booking in the city after Spanish.

• Certified translations prepared to meet USCIS requirements
• Human linguists only, matched to the subject
• Fixed written quote within 60 minutes in business hours
• One office in New York, linguists in every state

Court Interpreters for Orleans Parish Criminal and Civil District Courts

Criminal cases are heard at Orleans Criminal District Court in the 1929 courthouse at 2700 Tulane Avenue, now the Israel M. Augustine Jr. Criminal Justice Center. Civil matters go to Orleans Civil District Court at 421 Loyola Avenue, which has fourteen elected divisions and original jurisdiction over all civil cases in the parish. The criminal court publishes its language access brochure in Arabic, Spanish, French, Vietnamese and Mandarin as well as English, and it states plainly that family, friends and the defendant’s own attorney cannot act as the official interpreter.

Statewide, the Louisiana Supreme Court’s Office of Language Access keeps lists of registered and certified court interpreters. A certified interpreter has passed simultaneous, consecutive and sight translation tests with at least 70 percent on each, and the language access plan the court adopted in 2020 places every court in Orleans Parish in its first tier, the courts expected to improve services fastest. Law firms retain us directly for the depositions, client meetings and translated exhibits that surround a case; see court interpreting and legal translation.

Certified Translation for the New Orleans USCIS Field Office

The USCIS New Orleans Field Office, at 1250 Poydras Street, Suite 1800, covers Louisiana and part of Mississippi. Affirmative asylum interviews are not held there: they belong to the New Orleans Asylum Office, which sits across the parish line at 2424 Edenborn Avenue in Metairie and also handles Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee.

Any document not in English that goes into a USCIS filing needs a full English translation and a translator’s signed certificate of competence and accuracy, as 8 CFR 103.2(b)(3) sets out. A Honduran birth certificate with a marginal annotation, a Vietnamese household registration or a Mexican marriage record all get translated in full, seals included. The receiving office decides whether the filing is accepted. See USCIS translation and birth certificate translation.

Translation for the New Orleans Immigration Court

The New Orleans Immigration Court is on the fifth floor of One Canal Place, 365 Canal Street. Judges there have an interpreter for the hearing itself, but the evidence is the respondent’s responsibility: under 8 CFR 1003.33, every foreign-language document offered in the proceeding must carry an English translation and a signed translator’s certification.

For an asylum or cancellation case that means police reports, medical records, identity documents and letters from home, often dozens of pages with a filing deadline. We translate the evidence packet, and supply an interpreter for the attorney’s preparation sessions so the declaration matches what the client will say in court. Name the client’s home country and region when you book; a Honduran client who speaks Garifuna at home, for example, may want Garifuna rather than Spanish for preparation.

Vietnamese Translation in New Orleans East

Vietnamese refugees began arriving in 1975, resettled with the help of Catholic Charities, and the first families moved into the Versailles apartments in what is now Village de l’Est. The Mary Queen of Vietnam church in Versailles remains the community’s center, and Vietnamese families have since spread to Gretna, Avondale and the West Bank.

Our Vietnamese translation work here runs from older refugee-era records to recent birth and marriage certificates for a spouse’s petition. Names must keep every diacritic, and a name written differently on two documents should be flagged, not silently corrected.

Spanish Translation for Honduran and Central American Documents

Hondurans first came to New Orleans through the banana trade: the United Fruit Company and Standard Fruit were headquartered here, and a statue of the Honduran hero Francisco Morazán has stood on Basin Street since 1966. After Hurricane Katrina, thousands of Honduran and Mexican workers arrived to rebuild the city.

Medical Interpreters for University Medical Center New Orleans

University Medical Center New Orleans, run by LCMC Health at 2000 Canal Street, has 446 beds and is one of three Level I trauma centers in Louisiana. It opened in 2015.

We supply medical interpreters in person or by video, and translate discharge instructions and consent forms that hospitals receiving federal funds must make accessible under Section 1557. Students at Tulane, Loyola, UNO, Xavier and Dillard can order diploma translation the same way. Upload files on the quote form or phone +1 (833) 282 8883; the fixed written price comes back within 60 minutes during business hours.

Questions we get asked