Trump administration orders printing 2020 census forms without citizenship question
Opponents of returning a question about US citizenship onto census forms in 2020 are rejoicing as the Trump administration confirmed it would start printing the forms without it, following a mixed opinion from the Supreme Court.
With the government due to start printing some 1.5 billion forms, letters and other mailings for the upcoming census, the Department of Justice (DOJ) notified the attorneys for Democrats challenging the citizenship question in the courts that the citizenship question would not be included.
"We won!” declared Daniel Jacobson, a former White House lawyer for the Obama administration.
HUGE CENSUS NEWS — the Government just advised that the decision has been made to print the the census questionnaire WITHOUT the citizenship question. We won.
— Daniel Jacobson (@Dan_F_Jacobson) July 2, 2019
Jacobson cited an email from DOJ attorney Kate Bailey, sent on Tuesday afternoon. DOJ spokesperson Kelly Laco confirmed to NPR that the decision to print the forms without the citizenship question has been made.
Last week, the US Supreme Court made a complex 5-4 ruling that sent the case back to the lower courts, with Chief Justice John Roberts siding with the liberals in arguing that the Department of Commerce needed to better explain its reasoning for reinstating the question.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had said the question was needed for the purpose of enforcing the Voting Rights Act, a measure designed to protect African-Americans from discrimination. However, Democrats have accused Ross of offering that as a “pretext” and wanting to suppress the count of immigrants in the US illegally and Latinos in general.
President Donald Trump called the decision “totally ridiculous” and said he was looking at delaying the census until the case made it back to the Supreme Court for a “final and decisive decision.”
It is unclear whether the decision to forego the question on the print order means that the Trump administration has abandoned it entirely. DOJ lawyers are expected to offer details at a forthcoming hearing before a federal judge in Maryland.
The 1950 census was the last to include a question about US citizenship, and the question persisted in some areas of the country until 2000, when it was phased out. Since then, all questions pertaining to citizenship have been moved to the American Community Survey, which is sent to only a small fraction of the population.
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