Hours after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the new administration removed 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 featured a “Go Home” button that directed viewers to a page with a video montage of Trump in his first term and on the campaign trail. The button was later updated to read “Go to Home”.
Hispanic advocacy groups and others expressed confusion at the abrupt change and frustration at what some called the administration’s lack of effort to maintain communication with the Latino community that helped him become president.
The Spanish profile of the White House’s X, @LaCasaBlanca and the government’s page on reproductive freedom were also disbanded. Meanwhile, the Spanish versions of other government agencies, such as the Department of Labor, Justice and Agriculture, remained available to users on Tuesday.
Asked about the changes, White House Deputy Press Secretary Harrison Fields said Tuesday that the administration is “committed to bringing the Spanish translation section of the website back online.”
“It’s day two. We are in the process of developing, editing and fine-tuning 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 on a short timeline,” he said without elaborating.
Trump removed the Spanish version of the site in 2017. At the time, White House officials said they would reinstate it. President Joe Biden reinstated the site in 2021.
The site’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 promises. Trump declared a national emergency on the US-Mexico border on Monday and announced plans to send US troops to help support immigration agents and limit refugees and asylum seekers.
According to 2023 Census Bureau estimates, about 43.4 million Americans—13.7% of the U.S. population age 5 and older—speak Spanish at home. The United States 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 clear line as to who they serve 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, an attorney in the nation’s capital, was initially unaware of the move, saying it hints at what the coming years of another Trump presidency would look like, with specific issues making headlines while “less, but things as malicious as that go unnoticed.”
“A move like shutting down the Spanish White House site and X-Profile serves no other purpose than to cut off resources for millions of Hispanic Americans and immigrants trying to enter the United States legally,” Hernandez said. “And it’s a slap in the face to the millions of Hispanic voters who supported him in this recent election.”
Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, is Cuban-American and speaks Spanish. At his swearing-in on Tuesday, he delivered remarks in Spanish, thanking God, his family and Trump.
Meanwhile, Latin American leaders and communications strategy experts expressed surprise at the page’s removal, given Trump’s popularity among certain Latino voters.
“If the White House is serious about engaging with Latinos, the second largest group in this country, then they must ensure that updates can also be distributed in Spanish, a preferred language of millions in our community,” said Frankie Miranda President . and Executive Director of the Spanish Federation.
He called it a way to ensure that “everyone is part of the civic process.”
Kris Klein Hernández, an American historian specializing in race, gender and sexuality at Connecticut College, said that removing content from official White House websites not only limits access to Spanish-speaking US citizens and migrants, but causes “some to ask questions about 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, particularly those related to the economy and border security.
“I didn’t see other language media getting the kibosh. So I think that’s a really interesting thing to highlight — if that’s the case,” Lee said.
The AP VoteCast, a nationwide survey of more than 120,000 voters, found that Trump won a larger share of black and Latino voters than he did in 2020, and especially among men under 45. Young Latinos, particularly young Latino men, were also more open. to Trump than in 2020. About half of young Latino men voted for Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, compared to about 6 in 10 who went for Biden.
