The Justice Department has told federal agencies they “should strive to operate solely in English,” the latest step in President Trump’s push to make English the government’s working language.
The guidance, an attorney general memorandum titled “Guidance on Implementing English as the Official Language,” was published Thursday in the Federal Register, which is taking public comments through Jan. 11.
A Justice Department spokesperson said the memo is already “final” and “in effect,” The Washington Sun reported.
The memo carries out Trump’s March 2025 executive order 14224 designating English as the official language of the United States, which also revoked a decades-old policy requiring agencies to expand services for people with limited English.
That order said agency heads did not have to stop producing materials in other languages. The new guidance goes further, listing a long range of government products that should be offered only in English.
The list includes official correspondence, regulations, public notices, forms and applications, websites, outreach and educational materials, internal communications and artificial intelligence tools.
Exceptions for the Law and the Mission
Agencies can still offer other languages when a law requires it or when it is needed to carry out the agency’s mission. The guidance cites national security work and health care services as examples.
Some agencies have already moved. This week the General Services Administration shut down the Spanish-language version of USA.gov, first launched in 2003, and began sending visitors to the English site, The Washington Sun reported.
“GSA will comply with all directives from President [Donald] Trump as we work to put America first,” a GSA spokesperson said. The Department of Housing and Urban Development moved over the summer to drop non-English languages from its services.
There is no blanket federal law requiring agencies to offer services in other languages, though some programs have their own language-access rules.
The change could affect more than 27 million people in the U.S. with limited ability to speak, read or write English.
“I would be surprised if we didn’t see more agencies taking down multilingual content,” said Jacob Hofstetter, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute.
Critics also point to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which the Justice Department and courts have read to require language access from states and other groups that receive federal money.
Former Justice Department civil rights attorney Michael Mulé argued multilingual access can also help the government. “I want the FBI tip line to be accessible to someone that has a tip on a criminal,” he said.
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