Trump Signs Executive Order Making English the Official Language of the United States

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Saturday designating English as the official language of the United States—a move that does not require federal programs to change their existing policies, but does allow government-funded entities to roll back language accessibility standards.

“It is in America’s best interest,” the order reads, “for the Federal Government to designate one — and only one — official language.”

The new directive rescinds a Bill Clinton-era mandate requiring all agencies and federal funding recipients to provide language assistance to people who don’t speak English. It does not, however, necessitate places to get rid of current policies or remove documents that list information in other languages.

The New York Times reports, “The pronouncement was the biggest victory yet for the country’s English-only movement, which has long been tied to efforts to restrict bilingual education and immigration to the United States.”

Over 30 states—from California to Kansas—have already designated English as their official language. In 2019, according to a Census Bureau report, 67.8 million people in the United States, or around one in five, spoke a language other than English at home, a number that has nearly tripled since 1980. Spanish or Spanish Creole are the second most used languages in the country, after English, with around 42 million people using one of them at home.

Lawmakers in Washington have long tried to pass legislation that would establish English as the official language of the US. The most recent of those efforts was a 2023 bill called the English Language Unity Act. It was introduced by two Republican senators: Kevin Cramer of North Dakota and current Vice President JD Vance, then the senator from Ohio.

Immigrant rights groups say the move could impact how non-English speakers can become US citizens, vote, and access crucial federal services like healthcare.

“This executive order, while framed as promoting unity, risks dismantling critical supports like ESL programs and multilingual resources that help immigrants adapt and contribute,” George Carrillo, co-founder & CEO of the Hispanic Construction Council, said. “Imagine families navigating healthcare or legal systems without materials in a language they understand, it’s a barrier, not a bridge.”

Some immigrants seeking citizenship are currently allowed to do the citizenship test and interview in their native language, as outlined by the Department of Homeland Security,

“The exclusionary nature of this policy will only fuel xenophobia and discrimination at a time when anti-Asian hate and hate against other minority and immigrant groups are rising,” APIAVote, a nonpartisan nonprofit focused on registering Asian American and Pacific Islander voters, said in a statement. “It will make it harder for them to participate civically and vote, as well as access critical healthcare, economic and education resources.”

Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of America’s Voice, an advocacy group for immigration reform, told AP News that this move by Trump “isn’t just an offensive gesture that sticks a thumb in the eye of millions of U.S. citizens who speak other languages.” But, she continued, it “will directly harm those who have previously relied on language assistance for vital information.”

Others critiqued what the executive order would mean for Puerto Rico, where 94 percent of residents speak Spanish.

“The president’s order declaring English as the only official language of the United States reflects a vision of American identity that conflicts with our Puerto Rican identity,” Pablo José Hernández Rivera, a nonvoting member of the House and the resident commissioner of the US territory, said. “There will be no statehood without assimilation, and Puerto Ricans will never surrender our identity.”

The executive order comes after Trump focused much of his campaign strategy on scapegoating immigrants for a myriad of economic and social concerns. On the trail, he blamed murders in the US on immigrants with “bad genes,” called immigrants living in America without documentation “animals” and “not human.” He also claimed there was “a massive invasion at our southern border that has spread misery, crime, poverty, disease, and destruction to communities all across our land.”

Heading into the last election, xenophobia and hate speech were spiking, according to Yonatan Lupu, an associate professor of political science at George Washington University who leads a team that monitors about 1,000 hate communities across a range of online platforms. Lupu told the Times that hate speech levels were up about 50 percent compared with early 2020 before the murder of George Floyd that summer.

“I certainly don’t remember in my lifetime the rhetoric against immigrants ever getting this strong during an election,” he said.

Since taking office, The Trump administration has, among other actions, paused the resettlement of tens of thousands of refugees who were already approved to come to the US, authorized immigration officials to target courthouses, schools, and churches as a part of a mass deportation campaign, and took down the Spanish-language version of the official White House website—something he also did when he was in office the first time.

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When Trump was running for president almost a decade ago, in 2015, The Washington Post reported that he criticized his then-rival Jeb Bush to his face during a debate for speaking Spanish on the campaign trail.

“We have a country, where, to assimilate, you have to speak English. And I think that where he was, and the way it came out didn’t sound right to me. We have to have assimilation—to have a country, we have to have assimilation,” Trump said at the time. “This is a country where we speak English, not Spanish.”