Trump to sign executive order making English the official US language
President Donald Trump is expected to sign a historic executive order designating English as the United States' official language, a White House official confirmed to ABC News on Friday.
The order marks the first time the country has ever had a national language.
The executive order rescinds a Clinton-era mandate that required agencies and recipients of federal funding to provide extensive language assistance to non-English speakers. Under the new order, agencies will have the flexibility to decide how and when to offer services in languages other than English, according to a fact sheet the White House shared with ABC News.
The White House is defending the action, saying that while hundreds of languages are spoken across the United States, English is the most widely used. Also, the White House maintains that establishing a national language unifies the country and its citizens.
"Establishing English as the official language promotes unity, establishes efficiency in government operations, and creates a pathway for civic engagement," the White House wrote in the fact sheet provided to ABC News.
It's not yet clear when Trump is expected to sign the executive order.
The move comes amid Trump's crusade to curb government support for programs promoting diversity, equity and inclusion. On his first day in office, the president signed an order directing federal agencies to terminate all "equity-related" grants or contracts and later signed a follow-up order requiring federal contractors to certify that they don't promote DEI.
People in the U.S. communicate in more than 350 languages, with Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese and Arabic as some of the most widely spoken languages other than English, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
A 2019 Census Bureau report found that the number of people in the U.S. who spoke a language other than English at home nearly tripled from 1980 to 2019 -- from 23.1 million (about one in 10) to 67.8 million (about one in five). The report also found English speakers increased, too, growing from from 187.2 million in 1980 to 241 million in 2019.
