From the Wall Street Journal–
“The Trump administration has dropped plans to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census form, after a Supreme Court ruling affected the government’s ability to print the questionnaire in time for legal deadlines, the Justice Department said Tuesday.A coalition of states, led by New York, had challenged the question on the grounds that it would depress responses from immigrant households, thereby reducing their political representation and share of government resources, both of which are determined by census counts. Immigrant-rights groups and other plaintiffs also challenged the question in several separate lawsuits.”
The Supreme Court offered an opinion on this that left the government and the lower courts in a state to find more information. The Court said that the what, allowing the White House to place the citizenship question on the census form is constitutional, however they said that the why, the reason for doing so, was unconstitutional. Which is hogwash. ‘The what’ is what is important while ‘the why’ is not relevant for any court to chime in on.
The citizenship question should be on the census form. Congressional representation and government resources allocation are based on citizens in a given district. The number of illegal aliens (not undocumented workers) needs to be known. We have borders, like every other country, and those borders need to be respected.
The Trump administration has been going a decent job on cracking down on unlawful entry into our country, but this decision on the census is a troubling defeat for immigration reform.
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