Trump Weighs Executive Order to Add Citizenship Question to Census

Trump says he’s considering issuing an executive order to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, adding “we can start the printing now, and maybe do an addendum after we get a positive decision.”

President Donald Trump said he may issue an executive order to add a question on citizenship to the 2020 census after the Supreme Court put the issue on hold.

“We’re thinking about doing that,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday before departing for a weekend vacation at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

Trump said Thursday that government officials were working through the July 4 holiday in search of a way to insert the citizenship question on the census despite a Supreme Court ruling that put the administration’s initial plan on hold. The forms for the once-a-decade headcount must be prepared soon to meet the deadline for 2020.

“We can start the printing now and maybe do an addendum,” Trump said, noting that he spoke earlier Friday to Attorney General William Barr.

A federal judge in Maryland gave the administration until 2 p.m. on Friday to explain the steps it is planning to advance the plan.

The administration initially appeared to accept the Supreme Court decision and began printing census forms that did not include the question. But Trump subsequently ordered the government to reexamine the issue in a tweet, prompting the Justice Department to examine alternative ways to proceed. On Friday, Trump said: “We were surprised by that decision.”

In New York, the federal judge overseeing the case that went to the Supreme Court told lawyers he sees no need for a new hearing because rulings blocking the question remain in place -- as, he said, the government has recognized.

“Given the government’s acknowledgment that this court’s injunction remains in place, its concession that it cannot take steps to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census questionnaire without ‘adopt[ing] a new rationale," its representation that it ‘will immediately notify this Court’ if it does so, and today’s deadline imposed by Judge Hazel, the Court sees no need for a conference at this time,” U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman said in a brief order.

Critics have argued that the citizenship question is an attempt to reduce immigrants’ participation in the survey. They say the administration is seeking to dilute the voting power of states -- whose congressional representation and Electoral College votes are determined by the every-10-year constitutionally mandated survey -- with more minority voters.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had said the goal of the question was to help the Justice Department enforce the Voting Rights Act, which protects minority voters, though the majority opinion issued by the Supreme Court called that argument “contrived.”

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