Bloomberg reports:
A federal judge blocked the Trump Administration’s plan to put a question about citizenship on the 2020 census, which will help determine U.S. elections, congressional seats and federal funding decisions for a decade.
The ruling comes after a two-week trial in Manhattan that the government sought more than a dozen times to derail. The Supreme Court may have the last word. It’s hearing an appeal related to the trial in February in hopes of handing down a decision before the Census Bureau has to finalize its questionnaire.
“Hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of people will go uncounted in the census if the citizenship question is included,” U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman said in a 277-page opinion. “In arriving at his decision as he did, Secretary Ross violated the law,” Furman said, adding the secretary “violated the public trust” in doing so with respect to the census.
BREAKING: Federal court blocks citizenship question from 2020 census.
“The evidence is clear that Secretary Ross’s rationale was pretextual…the court can not sustain agency action founded on a pretextual or sham justification that conceals the true “basis” for the decision.”
— Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) January 15, 2019
BREAKING: A federal court rejected the Trump administration’s inclusion of a citizenship question on the 2020 census.
This victory in our case is a forceful rebuke of the administration’s attempts to weaponize the census to attack immigrants and communities of color.
— ACLU (@ACLU) January 15, 2019
Census ruling: ‘The court vacates Secretary Ross’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census questionnaire.’ https://t.co/EOUDt8ZXKJ pic.twitter.com/5pc3C6TEg7
— Mike Scarcella (@MikeScarcella) January 15, 2019
Here’s Judge Furman’s 277-page BLISTERING opinion finding Wilbur Ross and Commerce Dept violated APA in adding citizenship question to 2020 census. https://t.co/rWZLb9P9rU
— Alison Frankel (@AlisonFrankel) January 15, 2019