Opinion | Trump’s English-only order does irreparable harm to US and its people

Name: US-bound with risks and dreams, the 'border crossers' from China
Uploaded: 2025-06-02T12:30:08.000Z
Duration: 13 min 51 s
Description: US-bound with risks and dreams, the 'border crossers' from China

Making English the official language of the US is more evidence of an administration that does not see value in differences or immigrants

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US President Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on January 30. Photo: AFP

Mark Magnierin New York

Published: 8:30pm, 2 Jun 2025Updated: 10:04am, 3 Jun 2025

US President Donald Trump has unleashed a blizzard of executive orders on the world in recent months, ranging from those as trivial as ending paper straw mandates to those as consequential as creating Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and restoring the death penalty.

One of the more innocuous-seeming edicts was one from March 1 making English the official language of the United States. This marks the first time the United States has designated an official language at the federal level since the country was founded.

On the face of it, the order seems benign enough. After all, nearly 80 per cent of Americans over the age of five only speak English at home. Of those who speak another language, some 91 per cent also speak English very well.

But as so often happens with Trump, there is more than meets the eye, particularly for Chinese people living in the US. Trump’s actions are a dog whistle for his white, fiercely loyal and often rural base. As one of the largest, more recent migrant groups, the Chinese and broader Asian-American communities are the most language challenged and therefore the most vulnerable.

A 2022 report by AAPI Data indicated that some 32 per cent of Asian-Americans had limited English proficiency, defined as speaking English “less than very well”. That was compared to around 29 per cent for those of Latin American origin and 12 per cent for Pacific Islanders.

The federal government’s English primacy designation is likely to make interpretation and translation services optional. In practical terms, as budgets tighten, that effectively means many will be eliminated, reversing a mandate established by former president Bill Clinton that made translation of federal documents mandatory. Several, mostly Republican states had previously enacted this policy at the state level.

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US-bound with risks and dreams, the 'border crossers' from China

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.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Making English the official language of the US is more evidence of an administration that does not see value in differences or immigrants

Making English the official language of the US is more evidence of an administration that does not see value in differences or immigrants