Trump just lost – and he lost BIG. The Supreme Court of the United States has blocked a citizenship question from being added to the 2020 census. While there is potentially still time to resubmit for inclusion, experts predict it’s not enough.
The 5-4 decision included the four liberal justices, joined by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts.
If today had gone a different way, the administration would have been allowed to ask all recipients a citizenship question on the 2020 census for the first time since 1950.
The question, many believe, would have caused undocumented immigrants to not respond to the constitutionally-required survey, thus undercounting possibly millions of people in the U.S.
U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman, of the Southern District of New York, noted that if the question were to be included, “hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of people will go uncounted.”
Last year Berman wrote that the Trump administration was “rigging the census,” in an effort “to sideline minority populations in 2020” that “will undermine democracy for decades to come.”
It came down to one basic concept not presented to SCOTUS.
“The sole stated reason — seems to have been contrived,” Roberts expressed. “We are presented, in other words, with an explanation for agency action that is incongruent with what the record reveals about the agency’s priorities and decisionmaking process.”
“The Secretary’s failure to consider this evidence — that adding the question would harm the census count in the interest of obtaining less accurate citizenship data — provides a sufficient basis for setting the decision aside. But there is more. The reason that the Secretary provided for needing more accurate citizenship information in the first place — to help the DOJ enforce the Voting Rights Act — is unconvincing,” Breyer wrote.
It should be noted, however, that the case has been kicked back down to the lower court. Although it is possible, it is unlikely that today’s ruling will be superseded.
Read the opinion here.