A federal judge in New York has ordered the Trump administration to provide documents related to its decision to include a citizenship question on the upcoming 2020 census, and said the lawsuit challenging that question filed by 17 states and the District of Columbia can move forward, New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood said.
“The federal government has a solemn obligation to ensure a fair and accurate count of all people in this country,” Underwood said in a statement. “By demanding the citizenship status of each resident, the Trump administration is breaking with decades of policy and potentially causing a major undercount that would threaten billions in federal funds and New York’s fair representation in Congress.”
Underwood said Judge Jesse Furman of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York allowed the lawsuit to proceed amid “strong” evidence the administration acted in bad faith.
Lawyers for the Trump administration and the states challenging the addition of a citizenship question met for oral arguments before Furman on Tuesday. The parties discussed the Trump administration’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit as well as motions regarding discovery.
The 17 states and the District of Columbia filed their lawsuit against the Trump administration in April, arguing the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 census is unconstitutional. The entities said seeking citizenship information would depress participation and primarily impact states with large immigrant populations.
Such an undercount, the states warned, would hurt representation in Congress and in the Electoral College, and threaten billions of dollars in federal funds for programs like Medicaid.
The Department of Commerce announced in March it would be adding a citizenship question to the decennial census as a means of ensuring better enforcement of the Voting Rights Act.
