WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The US Government has decided not to include a citizenship question for Census 2020 after the Supreme Court refused to allow it to be added into the census questionnaire.
In a ruling in a New York lawsuit against the Commerce Department on June 27, rejecting the Trump administration's stated rationale for including the citizenship question, the Supreme Court said the U.S. Census Bureau cannot add it without further explanation.
'The Census Bureau has started the process of printing the decennial questionnaires without the question (on citizenship). My focus, and that of the Bureau and the entire department is to conduct a complete and accurate census,' US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement on Tuesday.
However, President Donald Trump sounded adamant on the issue in a statement on Twitter.
He said it is a very sad time for America when the Supreme Court of the United States won't allow a question of 'Is this person a Citizen of the United States?' to be asked on the 2020 Census. 'I have asked the Department of Commerce and the Department of Justice to do whatever is necessary to bring this most vital of questions, and this very important case, to a successful conclusion,' he tweeted late Tuesday.
This is seen as a major political victory for the opposition Democratic party, which accused the Republicans of trying to manipulate the census results in their favor.
Civil right groups feared the citizenship question would be used to identify illegal immigrants.
A significant number of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, Hispanics, Pacific Islanders and Alaska Natives are in the 'Hard to Count' category.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said this is a welcome development for US democracy. Every person in every community should be counted in the Census, according to her.
Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer termed it as a victory for US democracy and for fair representation of all communities in America.
'The Trump administration's politically-motivated efforts to undermine the Constitution in this instance were so reprehensible even the conservative Supreme Court couldn't let them get away with it,' he said in a statement.
As required by the Constitution, the U.S. Census has been conducted every 10 years.
The reference day used for the next Census will be April 1, 2020.
The citizenship question has not been included in any Census since 1950.
In 2020, the United States population is projected to be 333,546,000, an 8.03 percent increase from the 2010 Census.
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