New Frameworks for Language Access: Tracking the Expansion and Features of State and Local Laws and Policies

Executive Summary

Limited proficiency in English can create serious barriers for individuals seeking to access government programs, ranging from health care to education, and hinder important communications from government agencies, such as emergency warnings and public safety alerts. To address these issues, many state and local governments have taken steps to provide language access in their services and communications for residents who have limited proficiency in English. Such efforts help governments communicate with an increasingly multilingual U.S. public, enhance public safety and emergency responses, and improve the overall effectiveness of government programs. Providing language access also helps improve equal access to government information and programs, ensuring that an individual’s level of proficiency in English does not prevent them from accessing public services for which they are eligible.

"Such efforts help governments communicate with an increasingly multilingual U.S. public, enhance public safety and emergency responses, and improve the overall effectiveness of government programs."

To improve the organization and implementation of their efforts to better serve limited English proficient residents, many states and localities have developed cross-agency policies and laws that lay out requirements, standards, and other features to support language access. These policies have grown significantly in number in recent years, with nine states and 31 localities enacting new language access laws or policies since 2020. These laws and policies, which now exist in 13 states, the District of Colombia, and more than 60 localities, generally share certain common features related to agency responsibilities (for example, on the provision of interpretation services and the translation of written materials) and policy administration (such as naming an oversight office). Broadly speaking, these features help ensure fidelity in a policy’s implementation by individual agencies and create the mechanisms and infrastructure through which state and local governments can promote the effective administration of these policies on an ongoing basis.

Language access, in addition to being a practical response to community needs, has been a long-standing subject of federal civil rights law. Recipients of federal funding—which include many state and local government agencies—are required by law, court decisions, and regulations stretching back to the 1960s to take steps to ensure that limited proficiency in English does not block eligible individuals from accessing services. An executive order from the Clinton administration, which was in effect until 2025, also created a federal policy framework that brought greater coordination and consistency to language access efforts by federal agencies and in federally funded programs provided by state and local governments and other entities. Federal monitoring, technical assistance, and other related efforts in subsequent years helped fuel the expansion of effective language access practices and policies not only at the national level but by state and local governments as well.

New headwinds in this policy area have emerged since the start of the second Trump term. Executive Order 14224, issued in March 2025, revoked the Clinton-era order on language access, among other actions, and a memorandum subsequently issued by Attorney General Pam Bondi provided additional details for federal agencies on how to implement this order. Although containing few, if any, details for federally funded programs delivered at the state and local levels, the memorandum did rescind long-standing Justice Department guidance on language access and made it clear that the Trump administration will seek to reduce federal support for language access. In short, even if requirements for recipients of federal funding remain in effect, the federal government may provide little to no monitoring, guidance, or emphasis on language access in its operations and oversight of programs under the Trump administration.

Against the backdrop of these growing cracks in the federal policy framework, state and local efforts to ensure language access have taken on new importance. Many are quite robust and, for the most part, do not rely solely on federal requirements, which have long been fairly loose and only sporadically enforced, regardless of which party has held the presidency. Because most major government programs are delivered to the public by state and local government agencies, rather than the federal government itself, state and local actors also have years of experience with operationalizing language assistance. Consequently, it is difficult to predict the extent to which policy changes at the federal level will affect language access efforts at the state and local levels, particularly if those efforts have been formalized by state and local policies or laws.

This report’s mapping of the rapid expansion of state and local policies in recent years can help inform ongoing efforts by policymakers, community leaders, and other stakeholders to establish, formalize, or improve language access measures in their state or locality. As ever, but particularly in light of federal actions in this arena, the development and strengthening of state and local policies can help ensure that language barriers do not impede delivery of critically important public services and information in local communities.

1 Introduction

Approximately 27.7 million individuals living in the United States as of 2023 had limited proficiency in English.1 The large majority were immigrants, but more than half (53 percent) of Limited English Proficient (LEP) individuals were U.S. citizens either by naturalization (9.2 million) or by birth (5.4 million). Ensuring that language barriers alone do not block individuals’ ability to access government programs and communications—that is, providing language access—has been a long-standing concern for many state and local governments. Since 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic starkly demonstrated how important it is for governments to be able to communicate effectively with all members of society, efforts to provide language access have also expanded greatly.

Providing language access is a complex task, requiring the effective integration of language assistance into the wide range of public touchpoints in government programs. Such assistance is primarily delivered via in-person or remote interpreting, the translation of written and online materials, or direct communication with multilingual government employees.2 The public touchpoints where language access is needed can include offices and call centers where members of the public interact directly with government staff; websites and online platforms where they access information and services; and announcements, informational documents, and communications via social media posts, broadcast and print media campaigns, and other mediums. Weaving language assistance into these many touchpoints requires extensive behind-the-scenes coordination, planning, monitoring, and other steps, as previous Migration Policy Institute (MPI) research has explored.3

Over the past 25 years, many state and local governments have sought to develop more organized measures to help LEP residents access public services and information. These efforts have come about due to numerous, often interrelated factors, including a growing awareness of the importance of language access, demographic changes that have brought more LEP individuals into communities, increased advocacy from multilingual communities, and practical challenges that state and local agencies have faced in trying to address language access in an ad hoc manner.4 State and local efforts have also been spurred by federal civil rights law and regulations that require recipients of federal funding to take steps to ensure that language barriers alone do not block otherwise-eligible individuals from accessing programs—a requirement that, because of the broad reach of federal funds, applies to most state and local government agencies.5

In the last five years, this push to formalize language access initiatives has prompted many states and localities to develop laws and policies to better organize, coordinate, standardize, and sustain their efforts. This report explores key features of these state and local laws and policies and examines their role in a new national policy context. It builds on prior MPI research, published in 2021,6 to highlight the proliferation of language access laws and policies in this latest period. The report begins by discussing the extent and nature of state and local language access laws and policies across the country, noting changes observed since 2021. It then assesses what the future may hold for these types of laws and policies as well as their important role in supporting language access in light of federal policy changes unfolding under the second Trump administration.

2 The Purpose and Features of State and Local Laws and Policies

State and local language access laws and policies all have the same foundational goal: to ensure that LEP individuals interacting with government programs are able to access public services and information to the same extent as residents who speak English fluently. However, these laws and policies do not exist solely out of a desire for fairness or to comply with federal civil rights requirements. They provide a range of practical benefits for LEP individuals, governments themselves, and communities as a whole.

For LEP individuals, language access helps mitigate the risk of being shut out of government programs for which they are eligible due solely to their level of proficiency in English. Such services—whether connected to education, health care, emergency services, anti-poverty measures, or other programs—are often essential for the well-being and economic mobility of LEP individuals and their families.

"For LEP individuals, language access helps mitigate the risk of being shut out of government programs for which they are eligible due solely to their level of proficiency in English."

From the perspective of government, language access helps improve program effectiveness and impact. Providing language access expands governments’ capacity to deliver services to all eligible individuals in their jurisdiction and to communicate with the country’s increasingly linguistically diverse public.7 As a result of this expanded capacity, government programs and services are better equipped to achieve their goals. For example, a public engagement program aiming to improve the reporting of crimes to law enforcement in a county with a large concentration of Spanish speakers is more likely to succeed if it delivers information and outreach in Spanish as well as English.

This heightened program effectiveness often yields benefits for all members of society—such as those linked to lower poverty rates, educational success for all children in a community, improved public health outcomes, and the many contributions well-integrated immigrants make to local communities and economies. Communities also collectively benefit when all individuals are able to understand and comply with public health and safety announcements. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, translated announcements on mask mandates, social-distancing measures, and vaccine availability brought health benefits not only to LEP individuals but also the broader public.

A. Differences in Policy Design and Reach

State and local language access laws and policies vary in their levels of formality as well as their scope. These differences can be the result of a number of factors, such as which stakeholders pushed forward the law or policy and the political context of the jurisdiction in which it was proposed.

In terms of their scope, many state and local language access policies address particular sectors (such as health care or education) or individual programs (such as unemployment insurance), laying out requirements or standards for language assistance that apply solely to covered agencies, service providers, or other entities within the defined area. For example, California law requires the state’s Employment Development Department to provide expanded interpreting and translation in its unemployment insurance system, while Oregon law mandates the certification of health-care interpreters to ensure they are qualified to accurately convey health-related information to LEP individuals.8 Other policies stretch across jurisdictions, covering all public-serving agencies in a particular state or locality. Such policies seek to provide a more standardized, coordinated response to language access across all of the state or local government’s programs.

Language access policies also vary in their levels of formality. At the most formalized end of the spectrum are laws, ordinances, and other legislation enacted by state legislatures or local elected bodies (such as city councils or county boards of commissioners). For example, 11 states have formalized language access laws (see Figure 1), and at the local level, many cities have ordinances that address language access, such as long-standing ordinances in New York City and San Francisco.9 On the other end of the spectrum are less formalized policies such as North Carolina’s Language Access Policy and Statewide Language Access Coordination Plan.10 Less formalized policies are generally not as binding or permanent as legislation or even executive orders (which generally fall in the middle of the spectrum of formality). At the same time, less formalized policies can be easier to develop, given they are not created through legislative processes. At the local level, these policies often take the form of language access plans, whether for individual agencies or an entire jurisdiction, such as Minneapolis’s Language Access Plan.11

This report’s analysis focuses on language access laws and policies that both apply across agencies and impose requirements on those agencies (rather than solely offering recommendations or optional best practices). The second of these two criteria can be difficult to define because some policies, particularly at the local level, may not directly describe their features as requirements for agencies. In general, policies are only included in this analysis if they include some type of requirements or standards for covered agencies. Due to policy shifts and uncertainty related to language access requirements in federal programs, policies that were intended solely to comply with federal requirements—especially the now-revoked Executive Order 13166—are generally not included.12

Binding, cross-agency state and local language access laws and policies—referred to more simply as state and local language access policies for the remainder of the report—have increased greatly in number since 2020, with nine states and 31 localities having developed new policies since that year. As of November 2025, 13 states as well as the District of Columbia had cross-agency language access policies (see Figure 1). Several of these states updated or developed more formalized policies in recent years. For example, New York State codified pre-existing executive orders on language access into law in 2022, and the governor of Massachusetts issued an executive order in 2023 to strengthen a previous administrative policy.13

At least 66 localities—primarily cities but also counties and, to a lesser extent, towns—have this type of language access policy in place (see the appendix of this report for a full list). These localities are located in 26 states. Local policies have experienced marked growth in the past five years, with nearly half (44 percent) of the policies in place today having been enacted since 2020.

B. Notable Policy Features

State and local language access policies share many similar features. Given these policies aim to accomplish the same goal of providing timely, quality language assistance in government programs, such similarities are natural. These features fit into two primary categories—agency responsibilities and policy administration—described in depth in MPI’s 2021 report on state and local language access policies.14

Agency responsibilities cover requirements assigned to agencies and government staff to help ensure that language assistance is provided to LEP members of the public, while policy administration refers to larger-scale coordination, technical assistance, monitoring, and other efforts that occur across government, generally managed by a centralized office or staff person, to support the successful implementation of agency responsibilities. In this way, these two categories broadly correspond to front-of-house and back-of-house responsibilities as they relate to language access in government. Agency responsibilities are front and center, covering how agencies and government staff serve constituents, while policy administration occurs behind the scenes to make those efforts possible.

As laid out in Table 1, many policy features related to agency responsibilities correspond to the actual provision of language assistance via interpreting, translation, and multilingual staff.15 Relatedly, these features include requirements that aim to ensure the quality and accuracy of language assistance. Finally, this set of agency responsibilities includes two features related to coordination and planning; these requirements (developing a language access plan, designating a language access coordinator) are intended to support and organize agencies’ individual efforts.

Features in language access laws and policies related to policy administration are shown in Table 2 and cover a more diverse set of requirements. These include designating a single centralized oversight entity, monitoring agency community-engagement efforts, and budgeting for costs related to providing language assistance. Such features help support agencies in providing language access to the public but also aim to make sure that policy requirements and standards are being followed by government staff.

Features related to agency responsibilities are common among state and local laws and policies, as Figure 1 demonstrates. The frequency with which these features appear likely reflects their foundational role in establishing what agencies need to do in order to comply with these laws and policies and, more broadly, to provide meaningful language assistance. These features also align with priority areas of work for government staff involved in implementing language access measures.16 For example, more than 90 percent of the analyzed policies identify which state or local agencies (or staff members) in a particular jurisdiction are affected by the policies’ provisions, a key initial step in policy implementation. Nearly as common—at roughly 85 percent of analyzed policies—are features related to the provision of oral language assistance and features on the translation of written and online materials. Again, the frequency at which these features occur in state and local policies likely reflects their central role in enabling LEP individuals to access government services and communications. Practical tools such as staff training, accuracy standards, and public notice of the availability of language assistance are also common, appearing in more than 70 percent of laws and policies. Relatively less common—but present in just under two-thirds of policies—are requirements related to appointing language access coordinators and to developing language access plans.

Although important for the implementation and overall sustainability of language access efforts, features related to policy administration are less common than those on agency responsibilities. Still, as can be seen in Figure 3, nearly 80 percent of the analyzed laws and policies designate a cross-agency office, entity, or staff person to provide oversight and coordination for the implementation of the policy or law. Data-related requirements are present in almost two-thirds of the laws and policies, most commonly related to the monitoring of population data such as the number of LEP individuals and/or speakers of languages other than English in a jurisdiction. Provisions on accountability (most commonly complaint systems) and on technical assistance for implementing agencies were the next most prevalent features. Smaller shares of the policies and laws analyzed (approximately 40 percent) include funding-related provisions or require the involvement of community members and groups.

3 State and Local Policies in a New Federal Context

In contrast to the growth in the number of language access policies at the state and local levels since 2020, unfolding changes in the federal government’s approach to language access since President Donald Trump began his second term have brought new uncertainty and the likelihood of reduced federal support (if not outright opposition) for efforts to provide language access. These actions have destabilized key elements of the policy framework that previously guided language access in federal programs. This has affected both federally conducted programs (i.e., those delivered directly to the public by federal agencies such as the Social Security Administration) as well as federally supported programs (i.e., programs funded or otherwise supported by the federal government but delivered to the public by state and local governments or other entities).

Two primary actions set these changes in motion. First, in March 2025, Trump issued Executive Order 14224, designating English as the official language of the United States and revoking Executive Order 13166, a Clinton-era policy that aimed to better organize and support language access efforts in federal agencies and programs.17 Most tangibly, Executive Order 14224 removed the requirement that federal agencies take steps to provide language access in programs they themselves deliver directly to the public.18

Subsequently, Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memorandum in July 2025 providing guidance to federal agencies on how to implement the order. In it, she announced that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) would be rescinding its long-standing guidance on language access and temporarily taking down LEP.gov, the federal government’s centralized repository of technical assistance and resources on language access.19 The memorandum also laid out a series of recommended steps for other federal agencies (including reducing multilingual services and communications, and rescinding DOJ’s own guidance documents on language access), while promising the release of further, more detailed guidance in January 2026.20

Executive Order 14224 and the attorney general’s memorandum contained few, if any, content elements or guidance related to language access provision by state and local governments implementing federal programs. In its “Legal Framework” section, however, the memorandum indicated that the Trump administration believes that language access protections are much narrower than previously established by court decisions and long-standing executive branch interpretations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.21

Still, neither Executive Order 14224 nor other actions to date by the Trump administration have eliminated decades-old requirements that recipients of federal funding take steps to serve eligible LEP individuals. This means that state and local agencies receiving federal funds (as well as other funding recipients such as nonprofit organizations) are still covered by these requirements, which stem primarily from Title VI as well as other federal laws related to language access in specific sectors such as health care.22 The administration has, however, indicated that it will likely be taking few, if any, steps to provide monitoring, enforcement, or technical assistance related to language access in federally funded programs.

Language access laws and policies enacted by states and localities, it should be noted, are also unaffected by the executive order and DOJ guidance. Thus, the types of laws and policies analyzed in this report remain in effect and have not been overridden or eliminated by these changes in federal guidance and policy.23 In some cases, language access laws and policies created specifically and solely to comply with federal requirements that have been officially revoked (namely, Executive Order 13166) may no longer be valid, depending on the requirements and laws of the jurisdiction. In this new context, states and localities taking steps to improve language access in their programs—whether through formalized laws and policies or other efforts—will also likely find themselves with less guidance and funding than they previously received from the federal government.

4 What Does the Future Hold for State and Local Language Access Efforts?

State and local language access policies have undergone significant development, refinement, and expansion since 2000. Undergirding this rapid expansion has been the long-standing realities of demographic change that have made many U.S. communities more linguistically diverse, as well as greater community advocacy for improved language access in government programs. Over the past five years, state and local efforts on language access have also proliferated due to a variety of other factors, including sudden needs created by the COVID-19 pandemic.24

Looking ahead, the Trump administration’s positioning seems likely to block any advance of new federal efforts to expand language access, and likely to further roll back past work on the issue. These federal changes may also present challenges for some state and local language access efforts. For example, even if existing federal laws and regulations related to language access remain in effect, the downstream effects of reduced attention, guidance, and monitoring of language access in federal programs may result in some state and local government agencies abandoning or reducing supports they currently provide. Funding cuts to programs such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, often called food stamps) could also lead to resource constraints for state and local governments that ripple out beyond these particular programs. In the face of budgetary challenges, some states and localities may reduce their investment in language access measures. Federal staffing cuts are also likely to have an impact on state and local language access initiatives, particularly since agency civil rights offices and components of the DOJ that previously were critical sources of technical assistance for those implementing language access measures have been heavily targeted for elimination.25

But while federal requirements and associated monitoring and guidance have been important to the development of state and local efforts, they have not been the sole drivers of them. Furthermore, the nature of federal requirements for language access and the traditional role of state and local governments in complying with them may blunt some of the impact of the administration’s actions. Federal language access mandates have faced challenges that have limited their reach and effectiveness under past administrations as well.26 Over the years, the relatively loose nature of federal language access requirements and limited resources for monitoring and enforcement have meant that state and local government agencies have been largely, if not entirely, responsible for the actual implementation of language assistance in federally funded services. Consequently, it is difficult to predict the extent to which the unfolding federal retreat on language access will lead to similar responses at the state and local levels, though some decline seems inevitable.

"While federal requirements and associated monitoring and guidance have been important to the development of state and local efforts, they have not been the sole drivers of them."

The demographic trends and other longer-term factors that have contributed to the growth of state and local language access policies over the past 25 years also remain unchanged; therefore, many state and local governments will likely continue to face pressing practical needs to effectively communicate with their increasingly linguistically diverse communities. As a result, state and local actors will likely have compelling reasons to continue their language access efforts—and perhaps even expand them—despite changes at the federal level. Millions of individuals eligible for government services have limited English proficiency, and state and local government agencies will still need to be able to communicate with all residents regardless of the languages they speak in order to issue emergency alerts, receive reports of crimes, deliver notices from schools, provide public health information, and more.

State and local language access laws and policies will play a key role in achieving these practical, everyday goals. This is due in part to their ability to establish concrete requirements for government agencies and staff, on top of or in addition to those mandated by federal law, but also to their provision of standards, technical assistance, organization, and other supports.27 In addition, formalized policies help reduce the patchwork effect that can arise from agencies, offices, programs, and even individual government staff working on language access independently. Instituting a centralized, standardized approach can reduce such inefficiencies and create new opportunities for learning and innovation across agencies. Finally, formalized policies—particularly laws, ordinances, and other legislation, which often carry more weight and staying power than more informal measures such as language access plans—improve the sustainability of state and local language access efforts, regardless of what may happen on the federal level.

In this new context, state and local efforts to provide language access have taken on heightened importance. Despite facing uncertainty and ongoing changes at the federal level, states and localities can leverage the momentum built over the past 25 years to continue to strengthen the effectiveness of government programs in multilingual communities and to support LEP residents’ access to critical services and communications. From seeking opportunities to learn from one another to crafting innovative policy solutions, this represents a critical moment for states and localities to chart their own path in advancing language access for their residents.

"In this new context, state and local efforts to provide language access have taken on heightened importance."

Appendix. Mapping of State and Local Policies

TABLE A–1. State and Local Language Access Laws and Policies in the United States, as of November 2025