Trump Administration's Census Citizenship Question Plans Halted By Third Judge
April 5, 201912:41 PM ET
The Trump administration's plans to add a hotly contested citizenship question to the 2020 census have suffered another major blow in the courts.
The question asks, "Is this person a citizen of the United States?"
A third federal judge has found the decision to include it on forms for the national headcount to be unlawful.
In a 119-page opinion, U.S. District Judge George Hazel in Maryland concluded that the decision by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who oversees the census, to add the question violated administrative law. Federal judges in New York and California came to the same conclusion.
Similar to the earlier ruling in California, the judge also found including the question would be unconstitutional because, at a time of increased immigration enforcement and anti-immigrant rhetoric, it hinders the government's ability to count every person living in the U.S. once a decade as the Constitution requires.
Hazel ruled that the plaintiffs did not provide enough evidence to prove two additional claims — that adding the question was intended to discriminate against Latinos, Asian-Americans and immigrants; and that it was part of a conspiracy within the Trump administration to violate the constitutional rights of noncitizens and people of color.
more:
http://www.npr.org/2019/04/05/700982993/trump-administrations-census-citizenship-question-plans-halted-by-third-judge
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