Tag Archives: citizenship question

Trump to announce executive action on census citizenship question

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump points to a questioner while taking questions during a news conference following Tuesday's midterm congressional elections at the White House in Washington, U.S., November 7, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

By Jeff Mason and Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday will announce an executive action over his administration’s effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census despite ongoing court challenges, two administration officials told Reuters.

Trump, in a tweet, said he would hold a news conference about the census on Thursday afternoon. The White House said Trump would make remarks on citizenship and the census at 5 p.m. (2100 GMT).

The administration’s attempts to add the contentious question have been blocked in the courts because of challenges from some U.S. states and civil rights groups.

The census is used to determine how many seats each state gets in the U.S. House of Representatives and also affects how billions of dollars in federal funds are doled out across the country.

Critics say that asking about citizenship in the census discriminates against racial minorities and is aimed at giving Republicans an unfair advantage in elections. Trump and his supporters say it makes sense to know how many non-citizens are living in the country.

The administration was still ironing out the details of the action, which was likely to be an executive order, one of the officials said.

Trump and his administration’s efforts to add a question to the nation’s once-a-decade population survey have become embroiled in a legal fight not only over plaintiffs’ opposition but also over the Department of Justice’s handling of the cases.

The case had already made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which last month ruled against the Republican president’s first attempt to add the question, saying the administration’s rationale was “contrived” but leaving the door open to its possible addition if officials could offer a new explanation.

Since then, the Justice Department has sought to shake up its legal team by replacing the lawyers handling the case. On Wednesday, a second federal judge rejected the department’s efforts, saying it had to offer detailed reasoning for the change.

Attorneys within the Trump administration have been studying the census issue and intend to keep the president’s order within the confines of the Supreme Court decision, but they are cognizant that whatever action he takes is likely to be challenged in court again.

The U.S. Constitution specifically assigns the job of overseeing the census to Congress, limiting a president’s authority, which could complicate any effort to add the question via presidential missive.

Trump is insistent that the question be added to the census despite the legal challenges.

Democratic U.S. Senator and 2020 presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar on Thursday said the Census should not ask about citizenship status and that Trump and his administration’s were pushing it “for political reasons.”

“Now I guess you have the president looking for rational behind every painting and under every sofa in the Oval Office. But the truth is they don`t have a rational,” she told MSNBC, adding that any executive action would likely be illegal.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Susan Heavey; Editing by Alistair Bell)

In losing legal battles over census, Trump may win political war

T-shirts are displayed at a community activists and local government leaders event to mark the one-year-out launch of the 2020 Census efforts in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., April 1, 2019. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

By Tom Hals

(Reuters) – The Trump administration has few realistic options to get a citizenship question onto next year’s census, but by keeping the issue in the public eye it could still trigger an undercount of residents in Democratic-leaning areas, legal and political experts told Reuters.

Constant media coverage linking citizenship and census forms could scare undocumented immigrants away from responding and rally U.S. President Donald Trump’s base to participate, they said. That, in turn, would help redraw voting districts across the country in favor of his Republican party, encouraging the president to pursue a legal battle that he has little chance of winning.

The latest parlay came on Sunday evening, when the U.S. Department of Justice installed a new team of lawyers to handle the last iterations of litigation that has been going on for more than a year.

“Even if the question is (taken) off, if people are tweeting as if it may be a real possibility, it continues to raise fears and depress the count,” said Thomas Wolf, a lawyer who focuses on census issues at the Brennan Center for Justice.

The U.S. Constitution requires the government to count all residents – whatever their legal status – every 10 years. The information collected becomes the basis for voting maps and distributing some $800 billion in federal funds each year.

It is illegal for the Census Bureau to share information about individuals with law enforcement or immigration authorities. But the idea of asking residents about citizenship status has nonetheless stoked fears that the survey would become a tool for the Trump administration’s hardline immigration policies.

The president and his allies have said it is important to know about citizenship status, and characterized the question as something that should not draw controversy.

“So important for our Country that the very simple and basic ‘Are you a Citizen of the United States?’ question be allowed to be asked in the 2020 Census,” the president tweeted on July 4.

A Reuters poll earlier this year also showed 66% of Americans support its inclusion.

But demographers, advocacy groups, corporations and even the Census Bureau’s own staff have said the citizenship question threatens to undermine the survey.

Communities with high immigrant and Latino populations could have low response rates. Researchers have estimated that more than 4 million people out of a total U.S. population of some 330 million may not participate.

That would benefit non-Hispanic whites, a core part of Trump’s support, and help Republicans gain seats in Congress and state legislatures, critics have said.

The question seemed dead in June, when the Supreme Court blocked it, saying the administration had given a “contrived” rationale for its inclusion.

However, the high court left open the possibility that the administration could offer a plausible rationale. Department of Justice lawyers said on Friday that they were exploring other explanations. Trump also said he may try to force it into the survey through an executive order.

Legal experts immediately slapped down the ideas. It will be hard to convince justices that a new explanation is not also contrived, and an executive order would not override the Supreme Court decision or undo other court orders blocking the citizenship question, they said.

“There is nothing talismanic about an executive order,” said a statement from Thomas Saenz, the president and general counsel of MALDEF, a Latino rights group pursuing one of the cases against the administration. “Our government is not a dictatorship.”

Trump also said on Friday that although census forms are already being printed, the government could later produce “an addendum.”

It is not clear how that might work, but census experts said it would be an unprecedented disruption to a process that has been in motion for years.

“Any suggestion that on a moment’s notice the Census Bureau could add an extra piece of paper with an additional question to a census that it has been planning literally for a decade demonstrates a breathtaking ignorance of what it takes to pull off a census,” said Terri Ann Lowenthal, a census consultant.

An addendum would also likely be challenged in courts for running afoul of various administrative laws.

On Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a motion https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/motion-amend to prevent the citizenship question from being added.

In the meantime, attention surrounding the legal debacle may already be hurting the census and helping Trump achieve his goals, said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

“The longer he has this conversation, the worse it is for an accurate census count,” she said.

(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Additional reporting by Lawrence Hurley in Washington; Editing by Lauren Tara LaCapra and Rosalba O’Brien)

Trump considers executive order to add citizenship question to U.S. census

FILE PHOTO: Balloons decorate an event for community activists and local government leaders to mark the one-year-out launch of the 2020 Census efforts in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., April 1, 2019. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Friday said he may issue an executive order in an effort to add a contentious citizenship question to the 2020 U.S. census as his administration faces a Friday afternoon court deadline to reveal its plans.

“We’re working on a lot of things including an executive order,” Trump told reporters outside the White House as he left for his resort in Bedminster, New Jersey.

He also suggested that a query about citizenship could be added at a later date even if it is not on the questionnaire currently being printed.

Maryland-based U.S. District Court Judge George Hazel wants the administration to state its intentions by 2 p.m.

A White House spokesman said on Thursday that officials are examining “every option” available to add the query to the decennial population survey.

Trump administration officials have been scrambling in the aftermath of a Supreme Court ruling on June 27 that blocked the inclusion of the question, saying administration officials had given a “contrived” rationale for including it. But the court left open the possibility that the administration could offer a plausible rationale.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on Tuesday said the Census Bureau had started the process of printing the census questionnaires without the citizenship query, giving the impression that the administration had backed down.

But Trump then ordered a policy reversal via tweet on Wednesday, saying he would fight on, although the government has said the printing process continues.

The census is used to allot seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and distribute some $800 billion in federal services, including public schools, Medicaid benefits, law enforcement and highway repairs.

Critics have called the citizenship question a Republican ploy to scare immigrants into not participating and engineer a population undercount in Democratic-leaning areas with high immigrant populations. They say that officials lied about their motivations for adding the question and that the move would help Trump’s fellow Republicans gain seats in the House and state legislatures when new electoral district boundaries are drawn.

Trump and his supporters say it makes sense to know how many non-citizens are living in the country. His hard-line policies on immigration have been a key element of his presidency and 2020 re-election campaign.

A group of states including New York and immigrant rights organizations challenged the legality of the citizenship question, arguing among other things that the U.S. Constitution requires congressional districts to be distributed based on a count of “the whole number of persons in each state” with no reference to citizenship. Three different federal judges blocked the administration before the Supreme Court intervened.

The Supreme Court ruled that in theory the government can ask about citizenship on the census, but rejected the rationale given by the Trump administration for adding.

The administration had originally told the courts the question was needed to better enforce a law that protects the voting rights of racial minorities.

Administration officials had repeatedly told the Supreme Court they needed to finalize the details of the census questionnaire by the end of June.

Even if a citizenship question is not included, the Census Bureau is still able to gather data on citizenship, which the Trump administration could provide to states when they are drawing new electoral districts.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Alexandra Alper and David Morgan; Editing by Grant McCool)

Supreme Court conservatives sympathetic toward Trump census citizenship query

Advertisements for 2020 Census Jobs are posted at a restaurant in Concord, New Hampshire, U.S., February 18, 2019. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

By Andrew Chung and Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices on Tuesday appeared sympathetic toward a bid by President Donald Trump’s administration to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, a plan opponents have called a Republican effort to deter immigrants from taking part in the population count.

During an extended, 80-minute argument session, the court’s liberal justices voiced skepticism over the need for the question to enforce a federal voting rights law – the administration’s stated justification.

Lower courts have blocked the question, ruling that the administration violated federal law and the U.S. Constitution in seeking to include it on the census form.

The court has a 5-4 conservative majority, and conservative justices signaled support toward the administration’s stance.

Chief Justice John Roberts challenged New York Solicitor General Barbara Underwood, whose state sued the administration over the plan to add the question, saying citizenship is critical information for enforcing the Voting Rights Act.

A ruling is due by the end of June.

The case comes in a pair of lawsuits by a group of states and localities led by New York state, and a coalition of immigrant rights groups challenging the legality of the question. The census forms are due to be printed in the coming months.

The official population count, as determined by the census, is used to allot seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and distribute some $800 billion in federal funds.

Opponents have said inclusion of the question would cause a sizeable undercount by frightening immigrant households and Latinos from filling out the census, fearful that the information would be shared with law enforcement. This would cost Democratic-leaning areas electoral representation in Congress and federal aid, benefiting Republican-leaning parts of the country, they said.

Trump, a Republican, has pursued hardline immigration policies. His administration said the citizenship question would yield better data to enforce the Voting Rights Act, which protects eligible voters from discrimination.

The Supreme Court, with includes Trump’s conservative appointees Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, has handed the Republican president victories on some major policies, including last year allowing his travel ban targeting people from several Muslim-majority countries.

Business groups and corporations such as Lyft, Inc, Box, Inc, Levi Strauss & Co and Uber Technologies Inc also opposed the citizenship question, saying it would compromise census data that they use to make decisions including where to put new locations and how to market products.

Manhattan-based U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman on Jan. 15 ruled that the Commerce Department’s decision to add the question violated a federal law called the Administrative Procedure Act. Federal judges in Maryland and California also prohibited the question’s inclusion in subsequent rulings, saying it would violate the Constitution’s mandate to enumerate the population every 10 years.

In November, when the Supreme Court allowed the trial before Furman to proceed, three of the court’s conservative justices – Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito – said they would have blocked it, indicating they may be sympathetic to the administration’s legal arguments.

Furman found that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, whose department includes the Census Bureau, concealed his true motives for his March 2018 decision to add the question.

The Census Bureau itself estimated that households corresponding to 6.5 million people would not respond to the census if the citizenship question is asked, leading to less accurate citizenship data.

Citizenship has not been asked of all households since the 1950 census. It has featured since then on questionnaires sent to a smaller subset of the population. While only U.S. citizens can vote, non-citizens comprise an estimated 7 percent of the population.

 

(Reporting by Andrew Chung and Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

Trump declares U.S. census ‘meaningless’ without citizenship question

U.S. President Donald Trump listens to a question as he speaks to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., March 29, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

By Susan Heavey and Jonathan Stempel

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday injected himself into one of the most consequential cases of the current Supreme Court term, saying the nation’s 2020 census would be “meaningless” without adding a citizenship question to the questionnaire.

The comment on Twitter came ahead of an expected ruling from the Supreme Court on whether Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’ decision to add the citizenship question violated federal law.

“Can you believe that the Radical Left Democrats want to do our new and very important Census Report without the all important Citizenship Question,” Trump tweeted. “Report would be meaningless and a waste of the $Billions (ridiculous) that it costs to put together!”

The citizenship question is among a series of White House policies signaling tighter control over immigration.

These include Trump’s declaration in February of a national emergency to obtain funds for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, and his threat to close the border as soon as this week, disrupting legal crossings as well as trade.

The U.S. Constitution requires a census every 10 years, with results used to draw political boundaries, allocate seats in Congress and at the state and local level, and distribute roughly $800 billion of federal funds.

Critics have accused Trump of encouraging an undercount by dissuading immigrants from participating in the census, more likely hurting Democrats than Republicans.

When Ross announced the addition of a citizenship question in March 2018, he said it was in response to a Department of Justice request for data to help enforce the Voting Rights Act, which protects eligible voters from discrimination.

Only U.S. citizens can vote in federal elections. Non-citizens comprise about 7 percent of the 328.7 million people living in the United States. Census questionnaires have not included a citizenship question since 1950.

“The census is the administration’s new front on its war on immigration and, sadly, the president’s tweet today bears out that concern,” said Terri Ann Lowenthal, a former staff director on the House census oversight committee who now advises groups seeking an accurate 2020 count.

‘VERITABLE SMORGASBORD’

The Supreme Court is reviewing a Jan. 15 by U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan, finding that the addition of the citizenship question was illegal and that Ross’ decision to add it was “arbitrary and capricious.”

Oral arguments are scheduled for April 23, with a decision expected by the end of June.

Furman said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross broke a “veritable smorgasbord” of federal rules by including the question, and that enforcement of the Voting Rights Act was a “pretextual” rationale for adding it.

The judge said adding the question would cause many states to lose federal funding, while Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, New York and Texas would lose Congressional seats.

Furman, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, stopped short of a finding that Ross intended to discriminate against immigrants.

The decision came in a lawsuit brought by 18 U.S. states, 15 cities and a variety of civil rights groups.

In urging the Supreme Court to overturn Furman’s ruling, Solicitor General Noel Francisco said Ross had discretion to add the citizenship question, and that there was a “long pedigree” in the census for asking about citizenship or country of birth.

He also said other democracies including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Indonesia, Ireland, Mexico, Spain, and the United Kingdom ask about citizenship on their censuses.

Another federal judge, Richard Seeborg in San Francisco, on March 6 also declared the citizenship question illegal.

Following that ruling, the Supreme Court said it will also decide whether Ross’ actions violated the Constitution’s Enumeration Clause, which sets out terms for counting people.

Adding the citizenship question could lead to an undercount of 4.2 million Hispanics alone, the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy estimated last month.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington, and Nick Brown and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Bill Trott, Meredith Mazzilli, Noeleen Walder and Susan Thomas)

U.S. top court to decide legality of census citizenship question

The Supreme Court building is seen from the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., February 15, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

By Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court will decide the fate of a fiercely contested plan by President Donald Trump’s administration to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, agreeing on Friday to an expedited review of a judge’s ruling blocking the plan.

The justices, in a brief order, granted the administration’s request to hear its appeal of Manhattan-based U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman’s Jan. 15 ruling even before a lower appeals court has considered the matter. Oral arguments in the case will take place in late April, with a ruling due by the end of June.

Furman ruled that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had concealed the true motives for his “arbitrary and capricious” decision to add the citizenship question in violation of federal law.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)