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Saturday, July 13, 2019

Trump Signs Executive Order to Count Citizens

Federal agencies to submit data on citizens and non-citizens; A work-around that will also likely face court challenge(s).

From Zachary Stieber at NTD News:
"The Census Bureau said it could figure out the citizenship status of 90 percent or more of the population through the move, which would be more accurate than using a citizenship question on the census, Trump said on July 11.

“We will leave no stone unturned,” he said.

Trump opened the press conference with a hypothetical scenario of someone being asked if he were a citizen. “Are you a citizen of the United States of America? ‘Oh gee, I can’t answer that question,'” Trump said."
Citizenship questions have appeared on the U.S. census dating back to 1820. The question, in one form or another, was printed on every census until 1950. There was no citizenship question for 1960. The citizenship question was found on the long-form census from 1970 to 2000, however only one in six households received that long form.

The Obama administration removed the citizenship question for 2010, yet included the question in the American Community Survey (ACS). This was received by one in 38 households, which resulted in a smaller and less accurate sample for data used in Voting Rights Act enforcement. Oddly enough, Leftists proffered no court challenges to this diminishment, or sought a court injunction against the inquiry of citizenship in the ACS. Is the citizenship question no less chilling in the ACS than in the census?



NTD News continues:
“They’re trying to erase the existence of a very important word, a very important thing—citizenship,” he said, before alleging that people opposing accurate citizenship figures are not proud to be citizens of the United States.

“Knowing this information is vital to formulating sound public policy,” Trump added, citing health care, voting districts, and other issues.

“Unfortunately, this effort was delayed by meritless litigation,” he said. “As shocking as it may be, the far-left Democrats” want to hide the true number of illegal immigrants in the country, which is likely higher than anybody thinks, the president said.

Today’s executive order will finally give us an accurate understanding of how many citizens and non-citizens live in our country,” Attorney General William Barr said.

Barr said the administration would have prevailed in the ongoing litigation, but the effort would jeopardize the ability to conduct the census.

“There is simply no way to litigate these issues and obtain relief from the current injunctions in time to implement any new decision without jeopardizing our ability to carry out the census itself, which we are not going to do. So, as a practical matter, the Supreme Court’s decision closed all paths to adding the question to the 2020 decennial census,” he said."
That was a feature by Chief Justice Roberts, not a bug.