The Trump administration on Monday published official safety guidance on how the public can help protect itself during the coronavirus public health crisis. It just wasn’t available for all of the public to read: “The guidelines published by the White House are only in English and include, among other things, the administration’s recommendation that gatherings be limited to 10 people or less,” NBC News said.
Outraged over Trump officials’ lack of information for millions of Spanish speakers across the U.S., the political arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus took it upon itself to translate the information for them. “Since Trump failed to release them in Spanish, BOLD PAC decided to do it for him,” the organization tweeted. “Our families deserve access to public health info in a language they understand and trust.”
As BOLD PAC and NBC News both noted, Latino Rebels was first to notice the intentional discrepancy—and it’s intentional, all right: Latino Rebels reported “After the Trump administration said in early 2017 that a Spanish language version of the White House’s official page would go live eventually, there is still no Spanish-language version three years later.”
Latino Rebels founder Julio Ricardo Varela tweeted that the White House failed to respond to his initial email about the discrepancy, saying a fellow journalist forwarded him the email that officials eventually sent in response to inquiries about the lack of a Spanish language translation.
Varela tweeted that the White House finally sent Spanish language versions of the new guidelines on Wednesday, a full day after BOLD PAC had already translated and published its translation of the White House’s guidelines. Regarding other translations, “the White House said it would do so ‘as soon as possible’ but did not specify when,” BuzzFeed News reported, further noting “The CDC does have some information on its website in other languages.”
None of this administration’s disregard is surprising, particularly during this current crisis. Last week, the Justice Department was forced to backtrack on a directive ordering the removal of CDC-issued posters from immigration courts, and while the Trump administration has closed some immigration courts and postponed certain hearings, it refuses to go further with a complete shutdown as immigration judges, lawyers, and prosecutors have pleaded.
“We are a diverse nation with more than 40 million people who speak Spanish at home,” BOLD PAC said about the administration’s lack of a Spanish language translation of the guidelines. “It's unacceptable and cruel for the Trump administration to NOT release public health updates regarding COVID-19 in Spanish. We are demanding more for our communities and families.”