SALT LAKE CITY — The Supreme Court has ruled against adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census for now, saying there was enough evidence to be concerned with why the Commerce Department wanted to add the question.
Supreme Court Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion on this case, saying, among other things, that the reason the Trump administration gave the court doesn't match up with what the evidence shows.
- "The sole stated reason — seems to have been contrived. We are presented, in other words, with an explanation for agency action that is incongruent with what the record reveals about the agency's priorities and decision-making process."
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissenting opinion, saying this ruling was extremely out of the ordinary.
- "For the first time ever, the court invalidates an agency action solely because it questions the sincerity of the agency's otherwise adequate rationale."
Some groups see this as a victory while others are disappointed with the outcome. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren called the citizenship question a scheme while calling for every person in the country to be counted.
President Donald Trump voiced his disappointment on over a pair of tweets.
Rep. Elijah E. Cummings responded to Trump, voicing his concern over Trump's plan and how it might go against the Constitution.
NPR's Nina Totenberg and Hansi Lo Wang explained that according to the Census Bureau, a citizenship question would undercount the U.S. population by around 8 percentage points, or roughly 9 million people.
- "Census Bureau research has long shown that adding a citizenship question often leads people in households with immigrants — including those who are U.S. citizens — to simply not fill out the census form. That could result in an undercount that is not only substantial but uneven, according to Census Bureau experts, and it hits mainly in urban areas where immigrant groups live, while leaving rural, mainly white areas largely unaffected."
The ACLU tweeted out support for this decision.
Adam Serwer, write for The Atlantic, was pleasantly surprised by this outcome.
This case will now head back to the lower courts where proponents and opponents to the question will continue arguing this case with new information.