President Donald Trump is set to sign an executive order that will declare English as the official language of the United States, as announced by a White House official on Friday. This decision, reported first by the Wall Street Journal, marks the first instance in the country’s history of such a mandate at the federal level. While the U.S. has never previously designated an official language nationwide, several individual states have already established English as their official language.
President Trump, a Republican, has consistently emphasized his opposition to illegal immigration throughout his political career, and has openly endorsed the use of English in public settings. Notably, during his initial presidential campaign, Trump criticized fellow Republican candidate Jeb Bush for speaking a language other than English while on the campaign trail, asserting that “We’re a nation that speaks English.”
The executive order is expected to nullify a requirement put in place by former Democratic President Bill Clinton, which mandated that agencies and other entities receiving federal funding must provide language assistance to individuals who do not speak English. Among the various executive orders signed by President Trump since assuming office on January 20 is one aimed at preventing the allocation of taxpayer funds to support illegal immigration, prohibiting the use of federal resources for migrants residing unlawfully within the country.
According to ProEnglish, an organization advocating for English as the official language, a total of 32 U.S. states have already adopted English as their official language. The issue of language has been particularly contentious in states like Texas, where the usage of Spanish in public discourse has sparked debates over the years. In 2011, a state senator in Texas demanded that an immigrant rights activist speak English, rather than his native Spanish, during a legislative hearing, reigniting a longstanding dispute over the appropriateness of speaking Spanish in Texas—a region that was once part of Mexico and, before that, a territory of the Spanish Empire.
The language matter holds significant historical weight for many older Mexican-American residents of Texas, who vividly recall facing disciplinary measures for speaking Spanish in schools during the 1950s.
