Tag: citizenship question

Trump just admitted something he probably shouldn’t have about the census citizenship question

Washington Post logoPresident Trump just explained why he thinks we need a citizenship question on the census. But in doing so, he seems to have said the quiet part out loud — and conceivably could have undercut the Justice Department’s legal case.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said you need the census citizenship question “for many reasons.”

“Number one, you need it for Congress — you need it for Congress for districting,” he said Friday. “You need it for appropriations — where are the funds going? How many people are there? Are they citizens? Are they not citizens? You need it for many reasons.”

View the complete July 5 article by Aaron Blake on The Washington Post website here.

Plaintiffs ask court to block Trump efforts to add citizenship question to census

The Hill logoPlaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Department of Commerce over the 2020 census are asking a federal court to block the Trump administration from delaying the printing of census forms or changing them to include a citizenship question.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed the motion Friday with the state of New York and other groups seeking to block the citizenship question from being added.

The Supreme Court blocked the citizenship question last week, ruling the administration’s argument that the query is necessary to enforce the Voting Rights Act was unsatisfactory. However, Justice Department lawyers told a federal judge Friday that the Trump administration is reviewing “all available options” for adding the question.

View the complete July 5 article by Tal Axelrod on The Hill logo here.

Top USCIS official suggests census citizenship question could help with ‘burden’ of illegal immigration

Washington Post logoPresident Trump’s acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director, Ken Cuccinelli, on Friday seemed to add confusion to the White House’s position on including a citizenship question on the 2020 Census, saying it would help “with the burden of those who are not here legally.”

It’s unclear exactly what Cuccinelli meant. The Trump administration’s stated reason for wanting to ask about a person’s citizenship on the 2020 questionnaire has been to get a better sense of the voting population, not to gauge legal status.

But Cuccinelli, appearing on Fox News Business, suggested otherwise.

View the complete July 5 article by Colby Itkowitz and Maria Sacchetti on The Washington Post website here.

Trump considering executive order on citizenship question for census

The Hill logoPresident Trump told reporters on Friday that he is considering an executive order to ensure a citizenship question is included on the U.S. census.

Trump told reporters on the White House lawn that he has four or five options and is “thinking about” an executive order. He also said his administration could begin printing the 2020 census and later include the question as part of an addendum.

“We’re thinking about doing that, it’s one of the ways,” Trump told reporters before departing the White House for his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., noting that administration officials are “doing very well” on the issue.

View the complete July 5 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Trump administration drops citizenship question from 2020 census

The Hill logoThe Trump administration said Tuesday it was dropping a citizenship question from the 2020 census, days after the Supreme Court ruled against the question’s inclusion.

President Trump had initially said that he wanted to delay the decennial census as his administration continued to push for the question to be included in the 2020 survey.

But that effort appears to be over, after a Justice Department lawyer said the decision was made to start printing census materials without the question included.

View the complete July 2 article by Jacqueline Thomsen on The Hill website here.

House Democrats to continue census probe

Panel will resume query into why a citizenship query was added to next year’s census.

The House Oversight and Reform Committee will continue to investigate the addition of a citizenship query to next year’s census, Chairman Elijah E. Cummings said Thursday in the wake of the Supreme Court decision to block the question.

The investigation has been a hotspot of conflict between the House and the administration. The committee voted to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt over document subpoenas earlier this month. Cummings, D-Md., called on the pair to comply with the subpoenas.

“[I]t is now even more clear that our Committee’s investigation must get to the truth of why the Trump Administration was pushing the citizenship question and why it is engaging in this coverup,” Cummings said in a statement.

View the complete June 28 article by Michael Macagnone on The Roll Call website here.

Trump rage-tweets an idea that would violate the Constitution in furious response to the Supreme Court

AlterNet logoIn a blow to the Trump administration’s plans, Chief Justice of the United State John Roberts issued an opinion Thursday ruling against the Commerce Department’s plan to include a citizenship question on the upcoming 2020 Census.

While the administration claimed that the question was designed to help the Justice Department enforce the Voting Rights Act, Roberts and a majority of the court found that this explanation was not supported by the evidence in the case, and the Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision to remand the decision back to the agency. Many observers argued this will likely prevent the department from adding the question to the Census in time for the upcoming Census (though there’s some debate about this), and President Donald Trump, in two rage-filled tweets sent from his Japan trip, said he wants to delay the process:

View the complete Jun 27 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.

Trump asks lawyers if they can delay 2020 Census in response to SCOTUS ruling

Axios logoPresident Trump tweeted on Thursday that he has asked lawyers to delay the 2020 Census in response to a Supreme Court decision that will temporarily block the administration from adding a citizenship question.

Seems totally ridiculous that our government, and indeed Country, cannot ask a basic question of Citizenship in a very expensive, detailed and important Census, in this case for 2020. I have asked the lawyers if they can delay the Census, no matter how long, until the United States Supreme Court is given additional information from which it can make a final and decisive decision on this very critical matter. Can anyone really believe that as a great Country, we are not able the ask whether or not someone is a Citizen. Only in America!

Why it matters: It’s unclear what power Trump has to delay the Census, but it’s significant that the White House is considering additional legal action in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling. Per the Constitution, the Census is required to occur every 10 years.

View the complete Jun 27 article on the Axios website here.

Supreme Court rules against Trump on census citizenship question

The Hill logoThe Supreme Court found Thursday that the Trump administration did not give an adequate reason for adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census, blocking the question for at least the time being.

The move is a surprise win for advocates who opposed the question’s addition, arguing it will lead to an inaccurate population count. The administration had argued the question was needed to enforce the Voting Rights Act (VRA).

Those challenging the question said that asking about citizenship would cause non-citizens or immigrants to skip the question. The Trump administration has maintained in court filings that the data would not be accessible to other parts of the federal government, like immigration officials, but opponents argued that the implied perception surrounding asking about citizenship is enough to cause minority groups to not answer the question, or skip out on the census altogether.

View the complete June 27 article by Jacqueline Thomsen on The Hill website here.

House Oversight recommends contempt charge against Barr and Ross over citizenship question on census

AlterNet logoIn a morning press release, Democratic Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform Elijah Cummings announced that the committee has filed a bipartisan report recommending that both Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross be held in contempt of Congress. The contempt recommendation comes after both Barr and Ross refused to speak to Congress about the reason that a question on citizenship was added to the 2020 census form, and after other witnesses were blocked from discussing the issue.

Included with the recommendation is a transcript of the committee’s interview with former Ross adviser James Uthmeier. The transcript shows that officials at the Department of Commerce blocked Uthmeier from replying almost one hundred times. He didn’t answer questions about the advice he gave on the citizenship question. He wouldn’t answer when asked whom he had spoken to about the idea. He wouldn’t talk about a secret memo he wrote on the topic and hand-delivered to the Justice Department.

Even so, Cummings says it wasn’t completely useless to have the former adviser testify. “Despite these restrictions, Mr. Uthmeier provided the Committee with some new information,” wrote the committee chair. “He disclosed that he sought advice on adding the citizenship question from John Baker, an outspoken advocate who has argued that ‘the citizenship question is necessary to collect the data for a redistricting of House seats that excludes aliens from the calculation.’  Mr. Baker’s views on the citizenship question have nothing to do with enforcing the Voting Rights Act, but instead are focused on redistricting.”

View the complete Jun 25 article by Mark Sumner from Daily Kos not he AlterNet website here.