Nearly 28 million U.S. residents, more than half of whom are U.S. citizens, reported limited proficiency in English as of 2023. How government agencies at all levels communicate with multilingual publics can have significant consequences for public safety and emergency responses, access to public information and services, community well-being, and the overall effectiveness of government programs.

Amid a shifting landscape, with the Trump administration enshrining English as the official language and dismantling language access initiatives across federal agencies, the work of state and local governments in this area over the past two decades is taking on even greater relevance.

While longstanding federal civil-rights requirements to provide language access remain in place, the changes coming out of Washington in this policy area have created uncertainty and confusion.

This webinar from MPI’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy, which has long mapped the language access policy landscape, exploreS the role of state and local policies in today’s rapidly changing national policy context. Experts assess opportunities for state and local stakeholders to support and expand their language access policies and programs. The webinar accompanies the release of the report, New Frameworks for Language Access: Tracking the Expansion & Features of State & Local Laws & Policies.

Speakers include:

Ana Paula Noguez Mercado, State Language Access Manager, Office of New Americans, New Jersey Department of Human Services
Michael Mulé, Civil-rights attorney / language access expert
Jodie Stanley, International Support and Language Access Coordinator, Human Rights Department, City of Greensboro, NC
Jacob Hofstetter, Policy Analyst, National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy, MPI