This is the single most common reason a case I see comes back with a request for evidence, and it is entirely avoidable.
USCIS accepts forms and evidence in English. If you submit a birth certificate, marriage certificate, divorce decree, or police record in Spanish, it must come with a full English translation and a signed certification from the translator stating the translation is complete and accurate and that they are competent to translate. That certification is what makes it a certified translation. Notarization is not required.
Full means everything. Stamps, seals, marginal notes, and anything handwritten on the back. Translating only the parts that seem important is how documents come back rejected.
Two details that cause trouble: name spellings that differ between documents, and dates flipped between day-first and month-first formats.
Arizona courts are a separate matter. The courts publish official Spanish versions of most self-service forms, and we review everything with you in Spanish, but the filing itself is completed in English.
I prepare certified translations at $55 per page, or $45 at five pages or more.
SJ
Nothing here is legal advice. It is general information about how the process works, from an Arizona Certified Legal Document Preparer.