Attorney General James Celebrates Expansion of Multilingual Emergency Alerts

NEW YORK – New York Attorney General Letitia James today issued the following statement after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) published a long-delayed order requiring the expansion of cell phone emergency alerts to include American Sign Language and 13 additional languages:

“This is a profound victory for the millions of New Yorkers and families across the country who will no longer be left without guidance during emergencies and natural disasters. No one’s ability to protect themselves and their loved ones should depend on the language they speak. I am proud to have stood with my fellow attorneys general and advocates nationwide to push this rule forward. This language expansion will save lives.”

Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEAs) are short, text message-like alerts sent by government agencies through cell carriers to warn the public of imminent threats, including severe weather, natural disasters, missing persons, and other public safety emergencies. These alerts are among the most widely used and effective public warning tools in the United States, but for years were issued only in English, with Spanish only supported more recently.

Today, after years of advocacy from Attorney General James – and following a multistate demand letter to the FCC in November 2025 led by Attorney General James – the FCC has published its Multilingual Alerts Order in the Federal Register, extending alerts to the 13 most spoken non-English languages and American Sign Language. Wireless carriers now have until June 12, 2028 to update their systems to support multilingual alerts in Arabic, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), French, German, Haitian Creole, Hindi, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese, as well as American Sign Language. This expansion will benefit an estimated 1.3 million New Yorkers statewide who are not proficient in either English or Spanish and will now be able to access critical, life-saving information during emergencies.