English should be the official language of the United States, and I've never understood why it isn't.
President Donald Trump technically made it official with an executive order in March 2025. That was a start, but it's hardly the sturdiest way to get the job done. So far, no court has overturned, blocked, or invalidated Executive Order 14224. Still, the next Democrat president can wipe it out with the stroke of a pen. A federal law would be great, and a constitutional amendment would be even better. For now, though, the good news is that Trump keeps making moves to lock in English as the standard.
The Justice Department just issued new guidance telling federal agencies to operate in English only, and it pushes Trump's effort further than ever.
I so voted for this.
The guidance came out Thursday from the Justice Department under Attorney General Todd Blanche, and it backs up Trump's executive order in no uncertain terms. "Agencies should strive to operate solely in English," the guidance said. Agencies are supposed to publish official correspondence, regulations, public announcements, applications, websites, educational resources, internal communications, and even artificial intelligence tools only in English.
Trump's original order scrapped a policy former President Bill Clinton put in place in 2000 that pushed agencies to expand access to people with limited English skills. That order had left the existing multilingual services in place. The new guidance goes a step further, establishing English as the default in all instances.
Translations can remain only where the law requires them or where an agency needs them to carry out its mission. National security and health care are the two examples the department gives. Everything else is going. Agencies are being told to find and eliminate all multilingual programs that don’t meet that test.
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Several departments got the memo early.
HUD dropped all non-English language services in August. DHS, Education, and Treasury have all begun removing foreign language content from their websites. This week, the GSA shut down the Spanish version of USA.gov (which had been live since 2003) and now redirects to the English version.
Expect more of that.
"I would be surprised if we didn't see more agencies taking down multilingual content or trying to reduce the level of language access they provide," Jacob Hofstetter, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, told the Washington Sun.
That's exactly the point.
Every agency that follows suit adds another brick to the wall.
Of course, the critics are already making a stink. "I want the FBI tip line to be accessible to someone that has a tip on a criminal," said Michael Mulé, a civil-rights lawyer and former Justice Department civil-rights official. "I want someone to understand how to file their taxes the right way."
Except, the guidance already leaves room for translations an agency needs to do its job, and national security sits right at the top of that list.
It’s also worth noting that no federal law has ever required every agency to offer services in multiple languages. Some programs carry their own language rules, sure, and states and other groups that take federal money still fall under civil-rights protections that can require language help. So in the end, nobody is getting stranded here. The government is simply setting a clear expectation, and perhaps nudging the public, that you need to learn English to get by, and not to expect the federal government to bend over backward to accommodate you just because you refuse to learn the language of the land.
The Justice Department published the guidance in the Federal Register on Thursday and will take public comments through Jan. 11.
I’m all for this, and I only wish it hadn't taken so long. And, as far as I’m concerned, the next step should be making public education English-only. A shared language is the glue that holds a nation together, and asking newcomers to learn it is key. Trump finally has the federal government acting like it believes that again.
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