About 1 million New Jerseyans speak English “less than very well,” according to a 2020 U.S. Census Bureau survey, and when faced with a crisis like a pandemic, or the victim of a crime, we don’t want state authorities just defaulting to pulling up a sloppy translation off their phones.
The results can be worse than cringe-worthy. A domestic violence victim may struggle to get a restraining order because the responding officers wrongly reported that her abuser was “holding” her neck, instead of strangling her. Or she might mistakenly identify her child’s “caretaker” as her abuser, because of a bad translation that connotes financial support.
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