President Donald Trump has declared English the official language of the US, raising concerns about the accessibility of essential government services for non-English speakers.
“Immigrant communities are already under attack,” said Marita Etcubanez, director of Strategic Initiatives at Asian Americans Advancing Justice|AAJC. “This executive order is doubling down on the message that we don’t belong here, and that we are not Americans,” she said in an interview with Ethnic Media Services. “But we are also taxpayers. These are programs and services we have contributed to, and to which we are entitled.”
In an executive order signed March 1 — Designating English as the Official Language of The United States — Trump stated that English has been the language of the US since its founding. “A nationally designated language is at the core of a unified and cohesive society. The United States is strengthened by a citizenry that can freely exchange ideas in one shared language.”
“In welcoming new Americans, a policy of encouraging the learning and adoption of our national language will make the United States a shared home and empower new citizens to achieve the American dream. Speaking English not only opens doors economically, but it helps newcomers engage in their communities, participate in national traditions, and give back to our society,” wrote Trump in the Executive Order.
The new policy rescinds a previous executive order by the Clinton Administration, which mandated federal agencies to make their services available to people with limited English proficiency. Trump’s executive order leaves it to the discretion of federal agencies as to whether they will adopt “English only” policies.
In an interview with EMS, Etcubanez explained Trump’s executive order, and how it might impact language access. Here are excerpts:
Marita, do you envision federal agencies looking at this executive order and saying: ‘Well, we don’t have to provide language access, so we’re not going to?’
ME: We are going to be advocating with key agencies that they maintain their language access practices. But we also know that it is the Justice Department that has been the lead on language access. Now that the guidance on the Clinton Era executive order is rescinded, it is up to the Justice Department to promulgate new guidance. They’re going to continue to set the tone here, and I am concerned about what that is going to look like moving forward.
36 States have English as their sole language. But do you see more states taking this up given the messaging from the top down?
The message this executive order sends is deeply harmful. I am concerned that state and local governments will follow the lead as outlined in this executive order.
Do you envision a drop-off in voting, given that there might not be in-language ballots or support materials?
Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act mandates that jurisdictions in which the language communities meet a certain numerical threshold will still be required to provide multilingual voting materials in the covered languages. That doesn’t go away because there’s a new executive order. That is something we are going to have to monitor and fight for.
Now that said, not all jurisdictions are covered, and certainly not all languages that we need are included. So in terms of the areas where they are not required by law, but still have been providing translated voting materials and additional language support at the polls, we are concerned that there might be some pullback there.
What message is Trump sending out to immigrant communities?
The message being sent to immigrant communities is that we don’t belong, and that we should have no expectation of getting assistance from the Government, whether that is the services themselves or language support to access those services. And that poses really deep harm to our communities. We don’t want people to be discouraged from accessing necessary services, which I fear is one of the main messages intended by this executive order.
