President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order making English the official language of the United States.
The President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, is set to sign an executive order that will establish English as the official Language of the U.S.A.
The executive order will mark the first time in nearly 250 years that the U.S. will have a federally recognized official language. This action will reverse policies set in the 1990s, requiring federal government agencies to communicate in English exclusively. The move follows decades of debate over language policy in the U.S.
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President Donald Trump has received backing from Americans on social media, with many of them agreeing with this plan. The United States has gone through massive changes in many administrative parts since Donald Trump became president, from mass deportation of illegal immigrants to withdrawal of the U.S. from WHO, and now making the English language their federally recognized language of the land.
The official did not provide a timing for the signing of the order, first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
The United States has never had an official language at the federal level but some U.S. states designate it as their official language.
The Republican president has made opposition to illegal immigration a hallmark of both his White House runs and has embraced using English in public life.
During his first presidential campaign, Trump chided Republican rival Jeb Bush for speaking another language on the campaign trail. He told a news conference in New York in 2015 that “We’re a nation that speaks English.”
Trump’s executive order would rescind Democratic President Bill Clinton’s federal requirement that agencies and other recipients of federal funds provide language assistance to non-English speakers, the Wall Street Journal said.
Among the executive orders Trump has signed since taking office January 20 is one aimed at preventing taxpayer dollars from supporting illegal immigration, barring the use of federal money for migrants in the country illegally.
There are 32 U.S. states that have adopted English as their official language, according to ProEnglish, a group advocating English as an official language.
The issue has been problematic for certain states including Texas, where the use of Spanish in public life has sparked controversy over the years. A Texas state senator in 2011 demanded that an immigrant rights activist speak English not his native Spanish at a legislative hearing.
