Judge Sanctions Trump Admin After Citizenship Question Lawsuit

An Obama-appointed federal judge sanctioned the Trump administration on Thursday, ruling that the White House did not provide sufficient documentation amid its failed attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census.

Jesse Furman, a federal judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, ordered the Trump administration on Thursday to pay attorney fees as punishment.

Read the full story

Analysis: Four Reasons the Left Is So Invested in the Census Debate

by Fred Lucas   President Donald Trump is signing an executive order directing every agency to assist in getting a reliable count of citizens and noncitizens in the United States. The Department of Homeland Security, the Social Security Administration, and others agencies that have population data will be required to share with the Commerce Department to get an accurate count—after a setback by the Supreme Court last month. Liberal activist groups have been vigorously opposing the Trump administration’s push to ask a citizenship question on the census. “It will not stop us from collecting the needed information and I think in greater detail and more accurately,” Trump said in the Rose Garden beneath cloudy skies, flanked by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Attorney General William Barr. Today I will be issuing an executive order to put this very plan into effect immediately. I am hereby ordering every department and agency in the federal government to provide the Department of Commerce with all requested records regarding the number of citizens and noncitizens in our country. We will use these vast government databases to gain a full, complete and accurate count of the noncitizen population. Democrat-allied liberal groups accused Trump of promoting…

Read the full story

Trump Did Exactly What Opponents of the Census Citizenship Question Said He Should Do

by Kevin Daley   President Donald Trump’s executive order on citizenship data collection lays out a plan that hostile judges and opponents of the census citizenship question urged the government to follow from the start of the legal fight. Indeed, the steps outlined in Thursday’s order were previously repudiated by the president’s own senior aides and lawyers. “This is brutal,” an administration official told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Democrats are cheering now and it was a totally winnable issue the timid lawyers fumbled.” Thursday’s executive order directs government entities to assist the Commerce Department in calculating the number of citizens and non-citizens present in the country. For example, the order requires the State Department to make passport application data available to Commerce officials. The Census Bureau urged Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to follow that very plan as he contemplated adding a citizenship question to the census form. Career officials at the Bureau said that approach would yield more precise results than responses to a question on the census form. Ross rejected the idea in a March 2018 decision memo, saying “administrative records alone … would provide an incomplete picture.” After the 2010 census, the Bureau was able to match…

Read the full story

Commentary: How Technicalities Ended the Census Case

by GianCarlo Canaparo   Speaking from the Rose Garden on Thursday, President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr accepted that they couldn’t put the citizenship question on the 2020 census. Barr said that the administration would have won the lawsuits, but that “logistical impediments” made it impossible to win the cases in time for the census. For two examples of these logistical impediments, have a look at these unusual orders by Judge Jesse Furman and Judge George Hazel, who are overseeing the census lawsuits. In their orders, they ruled that the Department of Justice can’t use the lawyers of its choosing unless they comply with legally dubious requirements. Last month, the Supreme Court blocked, at least temporarily, the Commerce Department from adding the citizenship question to the census because it suspected Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’ stated reasons for doing so had been “contrived.” It sent the case back to the lower courts to investigate that issue. When the case got back to the lower courts, the Department of Justice attorneys representing the government defendants initially said they were giving up the fight and that the Commerce Department would begin printing the census forms without the citizenship question. But the president…

Read the full story

Over Half of Hispanic Voters Support Citizenship Question on Census

by Carmel Kookogey   A poll released earlier this month includes a finding that may surprise those who say adding the citizenship question to the 2020 census will result in minority communities not being properly counted. Among the Hispanic registered voters polled in the survey sample for Harvard University’s latest national monthly public policy poll, 55% say they are in favor of adding a question about whether a census respondent is a citizen to the 2020 census. Additionally, the poll, released by the Harvard’s Center for American Political Studies and the Harris Poll, found 67% of all registered U.S. voters say the census should include a citizenship question. There were reports Thursday that President Donald Trump planned to announce an executive order to include a citizenship question on the census. Trump added to the speculation with a tweet: The White House will be hosting a very big and very important Social Media Summit today. Would I have become President without Social Media? Yes (probably)! At its conclusion, we will all go to the beautiful Rose Garden for a News Conference on the Census and Citizenship. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 11, 2019 Mike Gonzalez, senior fellow at the Allison…

Read the full story

Citizenship Question Has Been Included on Canada’s Census Since 1901

  The debate over whether or not to include a citizenship question on the 2020 U.S. census has become the latest division in American politics, but a similar question has been included on Canada’s census for more than a century. On Saturday, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reported that America’s neighbor to the north has included a citizenship question on its census since 1901. CBC notes that Canada’s long-form census asks: “Of what country is this person a citizen?” Respondents can select three possible answers, including: “Canada, by birth,” “Canada, by naturalization,” or “Other country – specify.” “The citizenship question has a long history on the Canadian census, being introduced for the first time on the 1901 census,” Emily Theelen, a spokeswoman for Statistics Canada, told CBC. “This information is used to estimate the number of potential voters and to plan citizenship classes and programs,” Theelen added. “It also provides information about the population with multiple citizenships and the number of immigrants in Canada who hold Canadian citizenship.” Canada conducts its census every five years, while the U.S. census occurs every 10 years. Immigration lawyer Lorne Waldman said there’s no evidence that census information has been abused for immigration-enforcement purposes…

Read the full story

The Government Is Still Pursuing a Citizenship Question, But Path Forward Unclear

by Kevin Daley   The Trump administration is still looking for ways to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census form, government lawyers told a federal judge in Maryland Friday. The update comes as President Donald Trump announced that he is contemplating an executive order that would require a citizenship field to appear on census forms. “The Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Commerce have been asked to reevaluate all available options following the Supreme Court’s decision and whether the Supreme Court’s decision would allow for a new decision to include the citizenship question on the 2020 decennial census,” assistant Attorney General Joseph Hunt wrote in a Friday filing. “In the event the Commerce Department adopts a new rationale for including the citizenship question on the 2020 decennial census consistent with the decisions of the Supreme Court, the government will immediately notify this court so that it can determine whether there is any need for further proceedings or relief,” the filing adds. The filing did not include details as to when the administration will make a definitive decision about its next steps, or what specific options the Justice Department is considering. Apart from Friday’s hearing, Trump said the administration is…

Read the full story

Trump Will Push for Census Citizenship Question

by Kevin Daley   One day after senior officials publicly abandoned their ambitions to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census form, the Trump administration abruptly reversed course and told a federal judge it would continue its legal fight. Though government lawyers and census officials said the question would be excluded, President Donald Trump said by tweet Wednesday morning that his administration would press the issue. “We at the Department of Justice have been instructed to examine whether there is a path forward, consistent with the Supreme Court’s decision, that would allow us to include the citizenship question on the census,” assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt told a federal judge in Maryland. Government lawyers seemed bewildered when the Maryland judge asked them about the government’s rapidly evolving position. “The tweet this morning was the first I had heard of the president’s position on this issue, just like the plaintiffs and your honor,” said government lawyer Josh Gardner. “I do not have a deeper understanding of what that means at this juncture other than what the president has tweeted. But, obviously, as you can imagine, I am doing my absolute best to figure out what’s going on.” “What I told…

Read the full story

Trump Administration Backs Off Census Citizenship Question After Supreme Court Defeat

by Kevin Daley   The Trump administration will not include a citizenship question on the 2020 census form, the Justice Department said Tuesday. The decision comes after the Supreme Court found Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross concealed his reasons for adding the citizenship question and cleared the way for further proceedings. The Commerce Department supervises the Census Bureau. “The decision has been made to print the 2020 Decennial Census questionnaire without a citizenship question,” a Justice Department lawyer wrote in an email shared on Twitter. “The printer has been instructed to begin the printing process.” A Department spokesperson confirmed the government’s plans to the Daily Caller News Foundation. The case proceeded through the federal courts on an expedited basis due to time constraints. Government lawyers said the Census Bureau needed to finalize the questionnaire by July 1 to ensure timely printing and distribution. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in an accelerated procedural posture given the press of time. However, some census officials suggested the government could delay printing until October, raising the prospect that the government could ultimately add the citizenship question if it prevailed in another round of litigation. President Donald Trump suggested he would delay the…

Read the full story

White House Asserts Executive Privilege in Census Fight

  President Donald Trump has asserted executive privilege over documents that were subpoenaed by Congress related to the Trump administration’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, the Justice Department said Wednesday. The claim comes as the House Oversight Committee considers whether to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt for failing to turn over the subpoenaed documents. A contempt vote by the committee would be an escalation of Democratic efforts to use their House majority to aggressively investigate the inner workings of the Trump administration. In a letter to the committee’s chairman, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the Justice Department asserted that the administration has “engaged in good-faith efforts” to satisfy the committee’s oversight needs and said the planned contempt vote was premature. Democrats fear the question will reduce census participation in immigrant-heavy communities. They say they want specific documents to determine why Ross added the citizenship question to the 2020 census and contend the Trump administration has declined to provide them despite repeated requests. The administration has turned over more than 17,000 of pages of documents and Ross testified for nearly seven hours. The Justice Department has said two senior…

Read the full story

Challengers to Citizenship Question Ask Supreme Court to Delay Census Ruling

by Kevin Daley   Civil rights groups urged the Supreme Court to postpone its decision on the census citizenship question case late Wednesday, asking the justices to return the dispute to a lower court for review of new evidence. The plaintiffs said in late May that they uncovered evidence showing the Trump administration hopes to use granular citizenship data from the census to help Republicans during the redistricting process. That evidence, as well as claims that senior administration officials made false statements in official proceedings, needs to be reviewed by a trial court, the plaintiffs say. “If ever there were a case that should be decided on the basis of a true and complete record, it is this one,” the plaintiffs wrote in a Wednesday filing with the high court. “The decennial census is one of the U.S. government’s most important constitutional responsibilities, and even an appearance that the government has manipulated the census for partisan and racially discriminatory purposes would undermine public confidence in our representative democracy.” “This Court should not bless the [government’s] decision on this tainted record, under a shadow that the truth will later come to light,” the filing adds. Such suggestions are highly unusual at…

Read the full story

Trump Escalates Standoff with House, Claims Executive Privilege Over Census Records

by Kevin Daley   President Donald Trump is claiming executive privilege over administration documents regarding the addition of a citizenship question on the 2020 census form, as House Democrats prepare to hold two cabinet secretaries in contempt over the dispute. The move comes after Attorney General William Barr warned that Trump would assert privilege over the census records if the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee proceeded with plans to hold Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt. “The [Department of Justice] has explained to the committee on several occasions that these identified documents consist of attorney-client communications, attorney work product, and deliberative communications, and a federal court has already held many of these documents to be privileged in litigation,” Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd told House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Elijah Cummings in a Wednesday letter. “By proceeding with today’s vote, you have abandoned the accommodation process with respect to your requests and subpoenas for documents concerning the secretary’s decision to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census,” Boyd added. The committee’s vote, which was delayed following issuance of the letter, will need to be ratified by the full House before Cummings can ask a…

Read the full story

Divided Supreme Court Poised to Allow Citizenship Question on 2020 Census

by Kevin Daley   A deeply divided Supreme Court appeared ready to allow the Trump administration to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census form during a Tuesday morning argument, which was alternatively technical and heated. The Court’s divide followed the usual ideological lines. Though the case involves several complex questions, ultimately the Court’s conservatives seemed to say that the citizenship question is ordinary and appropriate for the census. “The principal purpose is to count the population, but we’ve had demographic questions on the census,” Chief Justice John Roberts said. “I don’t know how far back, but certainly it’s quite common.” “The questions go quite beyond how many people there are,” Roberts added, noting the census forms include questions touching finances and lifestyles. A coalition of Democratic cities, states, and civil rights groups sued the Trump administration after Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who supervises the Census Bureau, authorized the inclusion of the citizenship question on the 2020 census form. The plaintiffs, citing the Census Bureau’s own findings, say the question will diminish non-citizen participation. As such, the plaintiffs warn that the government’s move strikes at the very heart of democracy, since population is used to apportion federal funds, seats…

Read the full story

Commentary: The Left Wants to Stop Census Citizenship Question to Destroy Representative Government

by Bill Wilson   The rising chorus of the leftist meme reveals the legitimate fear they have for the move by the Trump Administration to ask one simple question on the upcoming Census; are you a citizen of the United States? To hear the horde of so-called “progressive” mouthpieces you would think the act of asking this question is tantamount to renouncing both the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence. The hyper-ventilating was on full display on April 15 by Catherine Rampell in the Pravda (Washington) Post in her piece, “The Trump administration’s census question degrades our data — and our democracy.” According to Comrade Rampell, asking if a person is a citizen will accomplish two vile goals of the Trump dystopia. It will degrade the data collected by the Census and, of course, it will be a spike into the heart of our cherished mythological democracy. Unfortunately, on both counts the radical anti-American Left are dead wrong. In fact, they are aggressively demonstrating their long-term goals on destroying both honest data analytics and any semblance of representative government. In the 15 Censuses conducted since 1870, the question has been asked in all but three cases. So, far from…

Read the full story

Citizenship Question Used on Census for 175 Years, GOP Report Shows

by Rachel del Guidice   A new report from House Republicans shows a citizenship question appeared on the U.S. census in one form or another for nearly 175 years, and argues that its addition to the 2020 census should not be controversial despite Democrats’ objections. “Every decennial census from 1820 to 1950 inquired about citizenship,” the minority staff report released Thursday by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform says, adding: From 1970 to 2000, the long-form census—sent to a segment of the population—inquired about citizenship. Since 2005, the Census Bureau has asked 3.5 million Americans about their citizenship every year. Those census appearances cover almost 175 of the 229 years since the first U.S. census in 1790. “This report analyzes the history of the citizenship question and demonstrates that Democrats’ efforts to sow fear and controversy around its reinstatement are without any merit beyond scoring political points,” the minority committee staff says in a press release. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, ranking member on the committee, authorized release of the nine-page report and appendix. Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Allison Center for Foreign Policy, said 1950 was the last time the government asked the citizenship question…

Read the full story

Commentary: Why the Citizenship Question Matters

by Jesse Merriam   The Judicial Resistance has struck again. As I have explained here and here, the historic 2016 election revealed how our federal courts have harnessed their power to stifle any change on the cardinal issue of the day and the signal issue defining the division between the American Left and Right: illegal immigration. The Judicial Resistance made its first strike two years ago, invalidating the so-called “travel ban” on multiple occasions, forcing President Trump to narrow the ban to a near-nullity. It struck again in blocking President Trump’s efforts to withdraw federal funding from states that refuse to enforce federal immigration law. And it struck yet again, just last month, when a district court issued a nationwide injunction mandating that the Trump Administration must permit the Central American caravaners to stay in the United States for as long as it takes to process their asylum claims. Now, in a 277-page opinion issued Tuesday, Judge Jesse M. Furman of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan held that the Trump administration’s decision to place a citizenship question on the 2020 census was illegal. Judge Furman rested his opinion on two principal reasons. One, Judge Furman claimed that the administration’s…

Read the full story