A multistate coalition is planning to sue the Trump administration over the addition of a citizenship question on the upcoming Census.
The impending multistate lawsuit, which is being led by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, follows a legal challenge filed by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra over the inclusion of a citizenship question on the 2020 census.
Attorneys general for New Jersey and Connecticut have already announced plans to join the lawsuit.
“A fair and accurate count of all people in America is one of the federal government’s most solemn constitutional obligations,” Schneiderman said. “The Trump administration’s reckless decision to suddenly abandon 70 years of practice by demanding to know the citizenship status of each resident counted cuts to the heart of this sacred obligation—and will create an environment of fear and distrust in immigration communities that would make impossible both an accurate Census and the fair distribution of federal tax dollars.”
The Department of Commerce said Monday the upcoming Census questionnaire will include a question on citizenship status. The Trump administration said the addition is needed for better enforcement of the Voting Rights Act.
The Justice Department asked the U.S. Census Bureau in December to add a citizenship question to the upcoming Census.
In the wake of the Commerce Department’s announcement, Becerra filed a lawsuit challenging the inclusion of the question as a violation of the Constitution’s “actual Enumeration.”
Schneiderman’s lawsuit is also expected to argue the citizenship question violates the Constitution and threatens the fair representation in Congress and the Electoral College of states with disproportionately large immigrant populations.
The suit is also expected to contend the inclusion of a citizenship question could cost states with large immigrant communities billions of dollars in federal funds.
“Notwithstanding the administration’s rhetoric, we don’t need a citizenship question on the 2020 census. And the reality is that such a question would only do harm,” New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said. “Particularly in the current national climate, a citizenship question will obviously cause great consternation and discourage participation in the census.”
Schneiderman had signaled in February he may take legal action against the Trump administration if it reintroduced a citizenship question.
The New York attorney general and 18 others, as well as the governor of Colorado, sent a letter to Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross expressing their opposition to its inclusion and warning it would “violate the Census Bureau’s obligations under the Constitution.”
