I am delighted to inform you that after several weeks of work, our Division has had a great achievement!
The Department of Homeland Security issued 12 Language access plans for each one of their missions and functions. They requested the input of the community and the ID participated as expert panelists at the DHS stakeholders meeting held last Friday October 24th in Washington DC. The Division will also submit a written letter to the DHS, on behalf of ATA to establish the perspective of the interpreters and translators.
One of our Leadership Council members had the vision to suggest that we issued written comments in response to the DHS Language Access Plans. We asked the membership for their input via List-Serve, then issued a report and ATA graciously gave us their endorsement!
I had the honor to speak on behalf of the ID and ATA as a member of the NGOs panel last Friday October 24th and, for the first time in a project of such magnitude, the perspective of the interpreter was heard by leaders of government organizations like USCIS, FEMA, ICE, DHS and many others.
This is a great example of initiative and team work. I certainly hope that our report has a positive impact in the standardization of our profession. By advocating for the rights of LEP individuals to have equal access to services, we are also advocating for the maintenance of the high standards of our profession. Remember: “Doing good to do well” is an essential tenant of good business practices.
I have attached the cover letter and the report of the meeting. As soon as the report is submitted to DHS we will also upload it to our website.
Enjoy the reading.