The Justice Department has told federal agencies they "should strive to operate solely in English," a major step up from President Trump's executive order making English the country's official language, the New York Post reports.
The guidance, published Thursday in the Federal Register, urges agencies to put out official letters, regulations, public notices, applications, websites, educational materials, internal communications and even AI tools in English only.
Translations should continue only when the law requires them or when they are needed for an agency's mission, the DOJ said, pointing to national security and health care as examples. Agencies are told to find and cut multilingual programs that don't meet that test.
Several departments are already moving. HUD dropped non-English languages from its services in August, and Homeland Security, Education and Treasury have started removing foreign-language pages from their websites. This week the General Services Administration shut down the Spanish-language version of USA.gov, which had run since 2003, and now sends visitors to the English site.
Trump's March 2025 order reversed a Clinton-era policy, from 2000, that pushed agencies to expand services for people with limited English. That order did not force agencies to end existing translations; the new guidance makes English the default. The DOJ is taking public comments through Jan. 11.
SOURCES
UPDATES
11:30 AM ET
Published.