For the first time in its history, the US will get an official language under President Trump. The president is expected to sign an executive order to establish English as the official language at the federal level in a move meant to promote unity and efficiency, officials tell the Wall Street Journal. As a result, a Clinton-era federal mandate requiring government agencies and other recipients of federal funding to provide language assistance to non-English speakers will be eliminated. It will be up to individual agencies to decide whether services in other languages should be offered, per Fox News. The administration has already erased the White House's Spanish-language website and its Spanish-language X account.
At the 2024 Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump claimed immigrants arriving in the US were speaking "languages that nobody in this country has ever heard of. It's a very horrible thing." Years earlier, during a 2015 presidential debate, he criticized former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for speaking Spanish, saying, "This is a country where we speak English, not Spanish." Some 68 million people, representing 20% of the US population, spoke a language other than English at home in 2019, according to census data. Some 42 million people, representing 13% of the US population, spoke Spanish at home.
Trump's planned order appears to be a partial rework of legislation proposed by Vice President JD Vance while serving as Ohio senator. His bill called on the federal government to conduct official business in English and introduce a language-testing standard for naturalized citizens, who already need to demonstrate an ability to read, write, and speak English, per the Journal. A White House fact sheet claims establishing English as the national language "strengthens the fabric of our society" by promoting unity, civic engagement, and "efficiency in government operations" and "encourages new Americans to adopt a national language that opens doors to greater opportunities," per CNBC. Trump is expected to sign the order sometime Friday, per Fox. (More President Trump stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
