The Trump administration is intensifying its campaign to make English the official language of the federal government, with new Justice Department guidance telling agencies to ditch foreign-language materials. "Agencies should strive to operate solely in English," the Justice Department declared in guidance issued Thursday, reinforcing President Trump's executive order designating English as the nation's official language.
The directive urges agencies to provide official correspondence, regulations, public announcements, applications, websites, educational resources and even internal communications and artificial intelligence tools exclusively in English. It marks a significant expansion of Trump's March 2025 executive order, which reversed a decades-old federal policy aimed at improving access to government services for people with limited English proficiency. While the original order did not require agencies to eliminate existing multilingual services, the new guidance makes English the default. The change could affect more than 27 million people in the US who have a limited ability to speak, read, or write English.S2
The Justice Department said agencies should continue offering translations only when required by law or deemed necessary to carry out their mission, citing national security and health-care services as examples. The guidance encourages agencies to identify and eliminate multilingual programs that do not meet those criteria. Several departments have already moved: the Department of Housing and Urban Development removed non-English languages from its services in August, while the departments of Homeland Security, Education and the Treasury have begun scrubbing foreign-language materials from their websites. The General Services Administration also shut its Spanish-language version of USA.gov this week, redirecting visitors to the English site; that Spanish portal had been available since 2003.S2
Critics warn the shift could weaken government operations. Civil-rights lawyer Michael Mulé, a former DOJ civil-rights official, cautioned that limiting translations could undermine efforts to gather information from the public. "I want the FBI tip line to be accessible to someone that has a tip on a criminal," Mulé said. "I want someone to understand how to file their taxes the right way." Jacob Hofstetter, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, predicted more agencies would take down multilingual content or reduce language access.S2
The DOJ published the guidance in the Federal Register and is accepting public comments through Jan. 11. The policy builds on a 2000 order signed by then-President Bill Clinton requiring agencies to improve access for people with limited English proficiency, and there is no blanket federal law requiring multilingual government services.S2
