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DOJ Tells Federal Agencies To Strive for Solely English Operations
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Agencies should strive to operate solely in English, per DOJ guidance. Federal websites and services remove multilingual translations under English-first policy.
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English-first directive
The Justice Department told federal agencies to “strive to operate solely in English” in new guidance issued Thursday, reinforcing President Trump’s executive order designating English as the nation’s official language.
The guidance urged agencies to provide government materials exclusively in English, including official correspondence, regulations, public announcements, applications, websites, educational resources, internal communications and artificial intelligence tools.
The guidance said agencies should continue offering translations only when required by law or deemed necessary to carry out their mission, citing national security and health-care services as examples.
The guidance also encouraged agencies to identify and eliminate multilingual programs that do not meet those criteria, while the Federal Register notice opened a public comment period through Jan. 11.
Agencies already changing
The Department of Housing and Urban Development removed non-English languages from its services in August, and the General Services Administration shuttered its Spanish-language version of USA.gov this week, redirecting visitors to its English-language site. The Spanish version of the government portal had been available since 2003, and the guidance said agencies should promptly identify and review all multilingual assistance programs.
The DOJ memo directed agencies to determine whether multilingual assistance was required by law or necessary to accomplish an agency’s mission, and it said agencies should eliminate assistance in favor of English-only operations if it was neither legally required nor necessary. Jacob Hofstetter, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, predicted that more agencies would take down multilingual content or reduce language access, and Michael Mulé, a civil-rights lawyer and former DOJ civil-rights official, warned that limiting translations could undermine government operations.
Public comment and stakes
The Justice Department published the guidance in the Federal Register on Thursday and invited public comments through Jan. 11, while a DOJ spokesperson told The Washington Sun that the memo was “final” and “in effect.”
The memo implemented President Trump’s March 2025 executive order, which reversed a decades-old federal policy aimed at improving access to government services for Americans with limited English proficiency.
The guidance said the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division plays a role in ensuring that multilingual assistance is available as part of the voting process, and it pointed to Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act and an obligation to hold election administrators to account for meeting language requirements.
Michael Mulé said, “I want the FBI tip line to be accessible to someone that has a tip on a criminal,” and he added, “I want someone to understand how to file their taxes the right way.”