The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) needs a supplier that can handle high-volume remote interpreting — a very high-volume.
Just how much? In documents related to a recent contract opportunity, DHS estimates the annual volume between 13m-23m minutes, though this is subject to change.
More specifically, the interpretation and translation services will assist the US Citizenship and Immigration Services’ Refugee, Asylum, & International Operations (RAIO) Directorate. For a sense of scale, approximately 700 asylum officers handle these interviews in 13 locations across the US, plus detention facilities and other USCIS offices.
Two major subdivisions of the RAIO Directorate are charged with “providing access to a comprehensive set of high-quality foreign language services.”
The full range of language services sought in this contract includes interpreting (primarily telephonic and video remote interpreting, with occasional on-site assignments); translation, in particular, sight translation, in which an interpreter orally interprets written text; and monitoring.
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For certain asylum application interviews, candidates with limited English proficiency are required to bring their own interpreter, if needed. However, the government pays for an interpreter to listen in on the interview to confirm the accuracy of the interpretation.
Suppliers will be expected to provide not only interpreters, but also the platform to be used for VRI.
Crunching the Numbers
An appendix to the contract opportunity notice listed 60 languages bidders must be able to handle, along with the estimated number of interview minutes per year. Of course, this comes with the caveat that “USCIS estimates up to 15% increase in staffing and workload during year one, which could result in an increase in usage.”
Spanish is, by far, the most needed language, with an estimated 10m minutes annually, accounting for up to 76% of the interpreting workload.
Minute counts for Mandarin (0.94m), Punjabi (0.62m), Russian (0.36m), and Arabic (0.27m) follow, at which point the volume drops below 0.2m minutes for Hindi, French, Portuguese, Bengali, and Haitian Creole. DHS anticipates volumes under 0.1m minutes for 50 of the 60 listed languages.
According to the contract opportunity notice, the deadline for applications was July 28, 2024, but it did not specify a date for an award announcement.
Image: Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security