Trump signs executive order recognizing English as official language in the United States
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order recognizing English as an official language at the federal level for the first time in the country's history. Previously, this status was assigned to English only in certain states.
Although throughout US history, all major documents, including the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, were written in English, the country has never had an official language as such at the legislative level.
English is recognized as an official language in 32 of the 50 US states, according to ProEnglish, a group advocating for giving English official status.
"It is long overdue to recognize English as the official language of the United States", the executive order says. It also says that a common language "promotes national cohesion", although it acknowledges that more than 350 languages are spoken in the United States.
According to government data for 2019, almost 68 million US residents spoke a language other than English at home. The clear majority of them spoke Spanish: their number is estimated at over 40 million.
Trump had previously discussed making English the official language when criticizing the Biden administration’s immigration policies.
With his new order, Trump repealed Bill Clinton’s 2000 order that required federal agencies and all organizations receiving federal aid to provide translation assistance to citizens who contacted them and did not speak English. Now, agencies will have to decide for themselves whether they want to provide services in other languages.
According to the presidential administration, among other things, the purpose of the order is to pay tribute to Americans for whom English was not their native language but who learned it and passed it on to subsequent generations, as well as to give confidence to immigrants who will be able to realize their American dream with the help of this universal language.
Trump returned to the White House a little over a month ago and has signed dozens of orders since then. Many of them reflect his conservative worldview, embodied in the slogan “Make America Great Again”.
Thus, he ordered the Gulf of Mexico to be renamed the American Gulf, and the highest peak in America, located in Alaska, was given the name McKinley back in honor of the 25th President of the United States, Republican William McKinley.
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