Trump Administration Caves on Effort to Add Citizenship Question to Census

The Trump administration on Tuesday dropped its effort to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census.

Daniel Jacobson, an attorney who had been on the team suing the government to keep the question off the census, released a letter from the Department of Justice stating that the government is dropping its efforts:

Here’s the email from DOJ pic.twitter.com/PdyfK0a1hJ

— Daniel Jacobson (@Dan_F_Jacobson) July 2, 2019

The news comes a week after the Supreme Court blocked the administration from adding the citizenship question to the census on the grounds that it had not provided an adequate reason for it.

Critics had argued that undocumented and non-citizens would skip the question, resulting in an undercount in mostly Democratic districts. This would have given the GOP the edge in redrawing districts to make them more solidly Republican.

President Trump had threatened to delay the census while lower courts reconsidered the question, but apparently felt it could not put off the printing deadline for the forms any longer.