Trump Abandons Fight for Citizenship Question on 2020 Census
- Census will begin printing without it, Letitia James tweets
- Critics said question aimed to diminish minority power
This article is for subscribers only.
The Trump administration abandoned its hard-fought plan to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census after the U.S. Supreme Court challenged its purpose, a win for immigrant-rights groups and Democrats who claimed the query was designed to dilute their power.
The move is a sharp reversal for President Donald Trump, who said last week that he’d explore ways to delay the census after the Supreme Court put the plan on hold. In a 5-4 ruling, the court said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s stated rationale for including the question was “contrived” and couldn’t be squared with the evidence about his true motivations.