Trump administration officials have privately discussed the possibility that in the future census information could be shared with law enforcement, according to documents filed in a legal challenge over plans for a new citizenship question on the 2020 survey.
The subject came up after a Democratic lawmaker asked whether responses to the survey could ever be shared with law enforcement agencies, something that has been strictly illegal according to federal law governing the census.
After a congressional hearing in May about the citizenship question, Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) submitted a written query about whether the Justice Department agreed with a memo it had issued in 2010 saying the USA Patriot Act could not override the confidentiality of the census.
View the complete November 19 article by Tara Pahrampour on The Washington Post website here.