The once-per-decade U.S. Census will ask about people’s citizenship status in 2020, the Commerce Department announced late Monday night. The move, which came at the request of the Justice Department, reinstates a controversial question that hadn’t been used on all surveys for decades.
“After a thorough review of the legal, program, and policy considerations, as well as numerous discussions with the Census Bureau leadership and interested stakeholders,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross wrote, “I have determined that reinstatement of a citizenship question on the 2020 decennial census is necessary to provide complete and accurate data in response to the DOJ request.”
While this might seem like the arcane workings of the federal bureaucracy, it is a decision that carries potentially major political ramifications — most notably for Republicans’ ability to gerrymander Democrats into the minority for years to come. And some are already crying foul.
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November 2019 Update from PRRI
Documents Show Trump Administration Lied About Citizenship Question
New documents unearthed by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform show that President Donald Trump’s administration tried to add a citizenship question to the 2020 U.S. census in an effort to aid Republican efforts on redistricting. The citizenship question and whether the administration had grounds to insert it into the 2020 U.S. Census ultimately reached the U.S. Supreme Court. “Chief Justice John Roberts’ 5–4
decision found that the administration had illegally ‘contrived’ a ‘pretext,’” reports
Slate.
PRRI data shows that Americans were divided about how they believe the question would be used. One-third (33%) said the government would use the question to check on an individual’s immigration status, while 26% say the question would only be used for counting the population, and a plurality (41%) say they don’t know how it would be used or refused to answer the question.
