In his first term, Trump wanted the U.S. Census to ask about citizenship. Critics worried that inserting the question would lower the response rate, leading to an undercount. In June 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court “ruled that Trump had not provided a sufficient rationale to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census as part of his broader campaign to stop illegal immigration.”
But that was then, this is now.
Science reports that the Trump administration scrapped plans to overhaul the census and inserted the citizenship question. The result, say knowledgeable insiders, will be an inaccurate census.
The U.S. Census Bureau spent 6 years preparing for a test this spring of ways to make the 2030 decennial census both more accurate and less expensive. In 1 day this month, the administration of President Donald Trump discarded many of those changes and replaced them with an approach researchers warn will likely do the opposite. That’s in part because the test will now include a citizenship question—something Trump has wanted to add since the previous census.
The agency originally planned to ask more than 650,000 residents in six test sites to respond to the same nine questions as on the 2020 census. But on 3 February, the Census Bureau posted a notice that “turned the plan on its head,” says Terri Ann Lowenthal, former staff director of a congressional panel that oversees the agency. In addition to paring down the sites to two, both midsize cities in the South, the agency said it would use some version of the much longer American Community Survey (ACS), an annual survey that monitors demographic changes and asks where residents were born and whether they are a U.S. citizen.
Taken together, the changes blow up the agency’s carefully crafted plans to better reach groups who are traditionally undercounted and to hold down costs, which reached $13 billion in 2020, says former Census Bureau Director and statistician Robert Santos. “It’s no longer a test of how to conduct the decennial census,” explains Santos, an appointee of former President Joe Biden who stepped down 1 month after Trump took office. “The changes make no sense and are not something the Census Bureau would have done on its own.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The court says you can’t do that. The convicted felon says do it anyway because I want it. And all the aides (king’s men) do it to avoid the tantrum and the ketchup on the wall.
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Another litmus test for the Trump court. Will they let this stand?
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The core issue that the Supreme Court ruled on in the 2019 Department of Commerce v. New York case was that Trump needs a “non-prextual” reason to include the citizenship question on the census form. “Non-prextual” means “not just an illegitimate pretext.”
The Supreme Court didn’t address whether or not inclusion of a citizenship question is or isn’t constitutional. If Trump’s reason for inserting the citizenship question into the 2030 census form doesn’t rise above the level of being “pretextual”, the 2019 Court ruling prevails for 2030.
Trump’s current plan to include a citizenship question on the next census will likely also be challenged this time on a constitutional basis; that is: Does including a citizenship question significantly interfere with or violate the 14th Amendment’s stipulation that the census must count the “whole number of persons in each state” — not just count citizens only.
The crux of the constitutional issue would likely hinge on the question that if by including a citizenship question, non-citizens would be intimidated from filling out the census form, which would result in the “whole number of persons in each state” not being counted.
As with any legal issue, especially constitutional issues, formulation of the brief’s Cause of Action statement is absolutely crucial to the outcome. Too often, passionate civil rights lawyers let their passion cloud their Cause of Action statements, leading to defeat or to decisions that leave loopholes for the opposition to exploit. Reading many of the briefs filed these days by civil rights groups, I wonder if law schools even teach the essential art of formulating a laser-focused Cause of Action statement these days.
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This administration is waging a war on data. The current leadership is serving the interests of the super rich, and regular people seem not to matter to them except to be used. If a government fails to collect data, it is likely it will be unlikely to provide services to areas of need. This administration has little interest in addressing costly problems that ordinary Americans face. These people care little about the common good.
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I do the genealogy for the family. I just copies of the 1900 and 1920 US Federal Census.
Citizenship questions were on both census reports. Example information included: Places of Birth of Father and Mother: Year of immigration to the US; Naturalized or not; Year of Naturalization; etc.
So, citizenship information was provided in past census 1900 & 1920 but for the 1930 census very little of the same citizenship information but by 1940 and 1950 (the latest available census released for public research) not the information is on the census report.
In the past most people did not seem to mind providing the information but since racism under people like Trump people are reluctant to even answer any census questions for fear of deportation. If I were a person living in this country today who was not native born to the United States I would be reluctant to even allow my name and my families information to be put on a census report.
I must admit as a person who does genealogy all that citizenship information is relevant to actually understanding who each person in a family history is, where they came from, what they did for a living, birth, etc. I do not feel that in seventy years when the 1920 census is released for review that the a genealogist who reviews the 2020 census will find all the information that was available in the past.
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I watch Finding Your Roots on PBS. Census records are primary source used for finding people. In addition, the show is a history lesson and sometimes even a science lesson as DNA can be used to confirm suspected, but not proven, familial relationships. It’s fascinating story telling about the struggles of our ancestors.
My husband has a part-time job administering heath surveys for the Census Bureau. Today, a lot of people, not just immigrants, are reluctant to talk to him and share information. His position will probably end soon since this administration is considering turning the data collection over to the USPS somehow.
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