Immigration court, asylum and medical interpreting across the US, a direct Kekchi-to-English interpreter where one can be placed, plus certified document translation.
For a Kekchi (Q'eqchi') speaker, Prism Linguistics places interpreters in immigration court, at asylum interviews, in hearings and at medical appointments across the United States, in person, by phone or by video, works to assign a direct Kekchi-to-English interpreter rather than relay through Spanish, and certifies English translation of the Spanish and English records that Guatemalan and Belizean Maya families carry.
Last reviewed September 2, 2026 by Sarah J, Prism Linguistics
Almost everyone who needs a Kekchi interpreter in the United States is in an immigration process, and many of them have been booked, wrongly, as Spanish speakers. Kekchi, written Q'eqchi' in Guatemala, is a Maya language of Alta Verapaz, the Peten and southern Belize, with around a million speakers, and a great many of them, women and older people especially, get by in only a little Spanish. Our office is in New York and the interpreter is assigned wherever the court, the asylum office or the clinic is, most often by phone or video, in person where one can be placed.
Someone who can answer where are you from and how old are you in Spanish cannot narrate a beating or a land dispute in it, and that gap is where asylum claims come apart. An adjudicator hears a halting Spanish account, reads it as evasion, and makes a credibility finding on what was really a language problem. So the language written on an intake form is not where we start. We ask what the person actually thinks and testifies in, because on that answer the case can turn.
Direct into English beats relay every time. The common workaround is a chain, English to Spanish to Kekchi through two interpreters, and every extra link is another place for a detail to drop. We place a direct Kekchi-to-English interpreter wherever the network allows, and when relay really is the only option we tell you that before you book rather than after.
Immigration courts have said in the open that they struggle to find interpreters in the Maya languages, and Kekchi is one of them, so lead time matters more here than for almost any language we handle. No state runs a court certification exam in Kekchi; a bench works from a qualified interpreter, and this is exactly the rare language that brings courts and immigration attorneys to us. Give us the hearing date as early as you have it and we build in time to place a direct interpreter. We are a private agency, rather than a court-appointed vendor.
Since September 2023 an affirmative asylum applicant has to bring their own interpreter to the USCIS interview, which puts the choice, and the risk, on the applicant and their attorney. The interview turns on detail: the sequence of events, the names, the dates, the things that do not quite add up. A Kekchi interpreter who renders exactly what is said, without smoothing or explaining it, is what protects the record. We brief every interpreter to that standard and book early, because a Kekchi interpreter cannot be found the night before.
A hospital or clinic that takes federal money must provide a Kekchi interpreter at no cost, and a Maya patient who has been quietly managing in broken Spanish is precisely who that rule is for. A consent form or a diagnosis run through approximate Spanish is not informed consent. Video handles most appointments, and for a difficult conversation or an elderly patient we place a person in the room where the network reaches.
There is no such thing as a Kekchi birth certificate, and understanding why changes what an applicant should send us.
In Guatemala the civil records, birth, marriage and death certificates and the DPI identity card, come from RENAP, the national registry, and they are written in Spanish. In Belize they come in English from the Vital Statistics Unit, and in the southern district where many villages speak Kekchi first, registration is patchy: as recently as 2018 fewer than half of the district's births were on the register, so a Belizean applicant may hold a late registration or nothing at all. The recurring problem is that the Kekchi speaker named on a Spanish RENAP certificate often could not read it, so an error nobody caught sits on the record, a surname spelled the way the clerk heard it, a birth entered years after it happened. We translate exactly what is printed and note any mismatch against the passport in the margin, rather than quietly correcting it, because it is the discrepancy, honestly marked, that an officer needs to see. The full document service is at certified translation.
Tell us the date, the city and the setting, or send a clear scan of the document. We reply with a fixed price and, for interpreting, a named linguist. Call +1 (833) 282 8883, email info@prismlinguistics.com, or use the quote form and you will hear back within 60 minutes during business hours.
Our only office is in New York, and our Kekchi interpreters work nationwide. For in-person work we assign someone based in or near the city. These are the areas where Kekchi work is concentrated; the full list of 288 cities is below it.
Prism Linguistics is rated 4.6 out of 5 across 67 client reviews for its interpreting and translation work in the United States. That is the company-wide figure; we do not publish a separate rating per language because there is no honest way to measure one. If a Kekchi assignment ever falls short, tell us and we put it right.