Trump to make English official US language, source says

President Donald Trump will sign an executive order to make English the official U.S. language, a source with knowledge of the matter said on Friday.

The source did not provide a timing for the signing of the order, first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

The United States has never had an official language at the federal level, but the issue has been problematic for certain states.

The use of Spanish in public life has sparked controversy over the years, including in Texas, where a state senator in 2011 demanded that an immigrant rights activist speak English, not his native Spanish, at a legislative hearing.

That rekindled a decades-old debate over whether it is proper to speak Spanish in Texas, which was once a part of Mexico and, before that, a part of the Spanish Empire.

The issue has been painful for many older Mexican-American Texans who recall being punished for speaking Spanish in school in the 1950s.