The Trump administration's closed the Department of Education's (DE) Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA) on May 14, 2026. The OELA was tasked with ensuring that the children of immigrants and others with typically lower English proficiency learned the language to a high academic and professional standard.
OELA's closure was not unexpected, as the U.S. government laid off the vast majority of its employees last year as part of sweeping cuts to the DE's workforce; the Trump administration has long intended to dismantle the DE, citing its apparent history of indoctrinating schoolchildren.
