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VAUGHAN · EB-5 FIELD GUIDE

Can we submit short English summaries of foreign records?

Sources checked:

THE DIRECT ANSWER

For USCIS, supporting foreign-language documents require full English translations with the required certification of completeness, accuracy and translator competence. A selected summary does not satisfy that translation requirement.

Keep the original and translation paired

Check that all relevant pages, stamps and annotations are handled consistently. Explain name variations with evidence rather than silently changing the translation to match another record. Build an index linking each translated item to the fact it supports.

Consular document instructions should also be checked for the later stage, because the accepted form of a civil record can depend on the issuing country. Partial translation is the most frequent avoidable defect here. A page rendered into English without its stamps, marginal notes, reverse side or attached schedule omits precisely the parts a reviewer looks for, and the omission reads as deliberate whether or not it was.

Hypothetical example: a compressed-gas distribution owner submits translated contract pages while the annex carrying the payment schedule stays in the original language, leaving the transfer amounts with nothing behind them. That shortcut costs a second translation round, a delayed response, and a file that now needs an explanation for its first version. Translating the whole document once, with the required certification, is the cheaper route even where part of it looks irrelevant.

Where a stamp is illegible, say so in the translation instead of leaving it unmentioned.