Washington, Jan 22 (AP) Within hours of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the new administration took down the Spanish-language version of the official White House website.
The site — currently https://www.whitehouse.gov/es/ — now gives users an “Error 404” message. It also included a “Go Home” button that directed viewers to a page featuring a video montage of Trump in his first term and on the campaign trail. The button was later updated to read “Go To Home Page”.
Hispanic advocacy groups and others expressed confusion at the abrupt change and frustration at what some called the administration’s lack of efforts to maintain communication with the Latino community, which helped propel him to the presidency.
The Spanish profile of the White House’ X, @LaCasaBlanca and the government page on reproductive freedom also were disbanded. Meanwhile, the Spanish versions of other government agencies such as the Department of Labor, Justice and Agriculture remained available for users on Tuesday.
Asked about the changes, White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields responded Tuesday that the administration is “committed to bringing back online the Spanish translation section of the website.”
“It’s day two. We are in the process of developing, editing and tweaking the White House website. As part of this ongoing work, some of the archived content on the website went dormant. We are committed to reloading that content in a short timeline,” he said without elaborating.
Trump removed the Spanish version of the page in 2017. At that time, White House officials said they would reinstate it. President Joe Biden reinstated the page in 2021.
The page’s removal coincided with Trump’s first-day wave of executive orders highlighted by the launch of an illegal immigration crackdown that was one of his key campaign pledges. Trump on Monday declared a national emergency at the US-Mexico border and announced plans to send US troops to help support immigration agents and restrict refugees and asylum.
According to 2023 Census Bureau estimates, about 43.4 million Americans — 13.7 per cent of the US population age 5 and older — speak Spanish at home. The US has no official language.
Monica Rivera, a brand and communications strategist in New York City of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent, said the shutdown sends a clear signal.
“There are 43 million Latinos who speak Spanish as their first language and removing access to information directly from the White House draws a distinct line as to who they are serving and more dangerously, signals to the administration’s MAGA base that we as Latinos are other’ and a less significant part of this country,” Rivera said.
Anthony Hernandez, a paralegal in the nation’s capital, wasn’t initially aware of the move and said it suggests what the coming years of a second Trump presidency would look like, with specific issues making headlines while “minor but equally malicious things like that go unnoticed.”
“A move like shutting down the Spanish White House page and X profile serves no purpose other than to cut off resources for millions of Hispanic Americans and immigrants attempting to enter the United States legally,” Hernandez said. “And it’s a slap in the face to the millions of Hispanic voters that supported him in this recent election.”
Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, is Cuban American and speaks Spanish. At his swearing-in Tuesday, he gave remarks in Spanish, thanking God, his family and Trump.
Meanwhile, Hispanic leaders and communication strategy experts expressed surprise with the page’s removal, given Trump’s popularity with certain Latino voters.
“If the White House is seriously interested in engaging with Latinos, the second largest group in this country, then they need to make sure that updates can also be distributed in Spanish, a preferred language for millions in our community,” said Frankie Miranda President and CEO of the Hispanic Federation.
He called that a way to ensure “everyone is a part of the civic process.”
Kris Klein Hernandez, a US historian specialising in race, gender, and sexuality at Connecticut College, said the content removal from official White House websites not only limits the access available to Spanish-speaking US citizens and migrants but leads “some to question which constituencies the administration prioritises.”
Jeff Lee, former deputy cabinet secretary and deputy director of external and international affairs for former California Gov. Jerry Brown, said the move seems counterintuitive given the opportunity to “showcase” policy changes, especially ones related to economics and border security.
“I didn’t see any other language mediums that got the kibosh. So I think that’s a really interesting thing to single out — if that’s the case,” Lee said.
AP VoteCast, a nationwide survey of more than 120,000 voters, found Trump won a larger share of Black and Latino voters than he did in 2020, and most notably among men under age 45. Young Latinos, particularly young Latino men, also were more open to Trump than in 2020. Roughly half of young Latino men voted for Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, compared with about 6 in 10 who went for Biden.
