Trump gov't will continue awkward efforts to include citizenship question in Census

Attorneys of the Justice Department are still looking for a way to include a citizenship question on the 2020 Census. If all else fails, Donald Trump said he would consider issuing an Executive Order to add the controversial question.
"It's one of the ways that we're thinking about doing it, very seriously," he said.

U.S. District Judge George J. Hazel Hazel had expressed mounting frustration with the mixed signals the administration was sending, first telling him on Tuesday that the question was off only to have Trump tweet the next day that the administration was "absolutely moving forward" with efforts to include the question.

The government, under directions of the Commerce Department, has already begun the process of printing the census questionnaire without that question.

On Friday (July 5), Hazel adopted a scheduling order allowing discovery to begin immediately in the racial intent claims brought by MALDEF in the Maryland federal court.

Hazel issued the order in response to filings by the Trump administration and plaintiffs regarding how to proceed in light of the government’s continued inability to tell the court what it will do to attempt to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month on the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) claim challenging the late addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 Census.

MALDEF and Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC (Advancing Justice | AAJC) sued the administration and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in May 2018 on behalf Latino and Asian American individuals, Native Americans, social service nonprofits, state legislative associations, civil rights groups, voting rights organizations, and community partnerships that would be forced to divert resources to combat a potential severe undercount in their respective communities.

In addition to a successful claim under the APA like the one the Supreme Court ruled upon, the lawsuit included the unique allegation that the Trump administration officials and others intentionally conspired to deprive racial minorities of their constitutional rights by adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. Those claims will now move forward.

“To be clear, orders in several courts across the country remain in place that prevent the Trump administration from proceeding with a citizenship question on Census 2020," said Thomas A. Saenz, MALDEF president and general counsel. "Until those orders are removed or modified, no executive order or other decision can permit the citizenship question to move forward.

“There is nothing talismanic about an executive order. Such an order does not override a Supreme Court or other judicial decision; nor does it overturn or circumvent the congressionally-established process for determining the content of the Census. Our government is not a dictatorship.

“There are also no mulligans in the law. An executive order does not result in ignoring the abundant evidence of unconstitutional racial discrimination that actually lies behind the late addition of the citizenship question to the Census, especially when Donald Trump was integrally involved in the conspiracy to add the question for legally improper reasons," continued Saenz.

By Friday evening, the American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal judge in New York to permanently block the administration from adding the citizenship question to the 2020 census.

"The Trump administration repeatedly argued the census forms could not be altered after June 30. They've now changed their tune because the Supreme Court ruled against them. They can't have it both ways," said Dale Ho, director of the ACLU's voting rights project.

The Census Bureau’s own experts have said a citizenship question would discourage immigrants from participating in the survey and result in a less accurate census that would redistribute money and political power away from Democratic-led cities where immigrants tend to cluster to whiter, rural areas where Republicans do well.

The government's facilating positions and the plaintiff's counter moves could hurt the census, said John Yang, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice. The group is a plaintiff in the Maryland case. “The government is trying to sow seeds of confusion in the public,” Yang said.

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Census will not include citizenship question; Trump still trying to delay Census

UPDATE 11a.m., July 3: Donald Trump tweeted this morning saying that he is still trying to delay the Census in order to reargue the case for the citizenship question. The original post is below the tweet.

In a major setback to the GOP and Donald Trump, the printing of the Census form is proceeding without the controversial question asking about a person's citizenship.

Dale Ho, who argued the Supreme Court case as director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project, said on Tuesday (July 2), “Everyone in America counts in the census, and today’s decision means we all will.”

The Commerce Department will go ahead with the printing of the dicennial tally despite Trump's request to delay the Census.

“This decision to move forward with the census without the problematic citizenship question is a victory for democracy!" said Rep. Judy Chu, chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. 

"Despite the false answer Secretary (Wilbur) Ross gave me about the origin of this question, we know from court records that the citizenship question was put forward by a Republican strategist looking to help the Republican party. In order to do so, they wanted to use the citizenship question as a way to frighten immigrants away from the census, hiding the true number of people in this country, and jeopardizing federal representation and funding for everything from housing to transportation to education.," continued Chu from California."

After the US Supreme Court turned down the administration appeal of a lower court decision to reject the question, Trump said last week he was looking at pushing a delay in the population count over the issue, which he's positioned as part of his broader crackdown on undocumented immigrants.

"I have asked the lawyers if they can delay the Census, no matter how long, until the United States Supreme Court is given additional information from which it can make a final and decisive decision on this very critical matter," he tweeted.

Asian Americans Advancing Justice and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund both sued to block the question based on the new evidence. Others joined in support.

The two groups along with other civil rights organizations argued that asking the citizenship question was an attempt to dissuade minorities and immigrants from taking part in the Census. 

The Census' own study estimated that the question would lead to an undercount of millions of people in the US.

Most recently, challengers of the question presented an unpublished 2015 study by a Republican redistricting expert as evidence that citizenship data would benefit Republicans when new political boundaries are drawn based on the 2020 census.

In the 2016 and the 2018 elections, most immigrants and people of color who were citizens  tended to register themselves as Democrats.

The US Census, mandated by the Constitution, forms the basis for representation in government and the allocation of federal funds for everything from infrastructure to social services.

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Supreme Court blocks citizenship question in US Census

Before the Supreme Court released it's decision Thursday morningn, opponents of the Census citizenship question protested in front of the court in Washington DC.

ASAM NEWS & VIEWS FROM THE EDGE

The US Supreme Court Thursday (June 27) blocked the Trump administration from including a citizenship question in the 2020 census, reports the Mercury News.
Asian Americans and Hispanics had argued the question was included specifically to discourage immigrants from filling out the census. The Census is used to determine federal funding for various communities.

The victory, however, for the plaintiffs in the case may be only temporary. The June 30 printing deadline for the Census could be extended by the Census Bureau, thus giving the Trump administration more time to explain the question and get it back onto the census form.

However, NBC News reports its unlikely the Commerce Department will have enough time to make that happen. Nevertheless, Trump, tweeting from the G-20 Summit in Japan asked White House lawyers to ask for a delay in the Census.

Chief Justice John Roberts joined the majority in the ruling. However, he joined the conservative majority on the court in stating the citizenship question, by itself, is not unconstitutional.

In recent weeks, evidence surfaced that the Trump administration specifically designed the question to lead to an under count of minorities. Republicans have largely become a party of Whites. Under counting minorities could lead to a reduction of electoral college votes for Democratic-leaning districts.

“We are gratified that the Court saw through the pretext offered by the Commerce Department regarding the need for the citizenship question,” said John Yang, President and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice. “We are confident that the evidence will demonstrate that the Commerce Department wanted the inclusion of this question for improper, discriminatory reasons. We believe that the clock is running out and that the Commerce Department should abandon its efforts to include a citizenship question for Census 2020.”

Asian Americans Advancing Justice and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund both sued to block the question based on the new evidence. Others joined in support.

“We applaud the Supreme Court for upholding the sanctity of the census,” said Sung Yeon Choimorrow , executive director of National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum. “In a political climate where citizenship questions have separated families and caused an uptick in racial profiling across the country, this question would have intimidated many immigrant communities from participating. Our communities deserve better from our government.”

New American Leaders, a non-partisan group dedicated to bringing immigrants into the political process joined in supporting the decision.

“By rejecting the inclusion of a citizenship question on the census, the Supreme Court recognized what we already knew—that Trump’s request was driven by nothing but bigotry, discrimination and a brazen attempt to gerrymander districts to maintain the status quo,” said founder and president Sayu Bhojwani, who was born in India. “Their decision means that people of color, immigrants and New Americans will have their voices heard and communities represented in 2020 and beyond.”

AALDEF executive director Margaret Fung said: “We are glad that the Supreme Court agreed with what AALDEF and NAPABA asserted in our joint amicus brief opposing the census citizenship question: that ‘the VRA enforcement rationale—the sole stated reason—seems to have been contrived.’ The government never intended to better enforce the VRA, as reflected in the fact that this administration has not brought any VRA enforcement actions. Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial group in this country and the largest segment of new immigrants. We will continue the fight to ensure that everyone in our country is properly counted in the 2020 Census and that our community receives its fair share of resources and representation.”

NAPABA President Daniel Sakaguchi said: “We are pleased that the Court ultimately rejected the Department of Commerce’s argument to include the citizenship question as pretextual and ‘contrived.’ Permitting the question to be added would have resulted in a significant undercount of immigrants and communities of color, leading to discriminatory cutbacks in resources and underrepresentation in Congress, in state houses, and in local government. The courts should continue to discredit the post-hoc reasoning of the Administration in its attempts to stop a fair and accurate count. It is incumbent on community leaders and attorneys to ensure that everyone is counted as part of 2020 Census.”

The Leadership Conference Education Fund, also cheered the ruling, but said the fight is not over.

” The specter of the question has heightened fear and mistrust in communities and discouraged some from participating in the census. All hands are on deck to ensure everyone is counted,” said Vanita Gupta, president and CEO and former head of the Civil Rights division in the Justice Department under the Obama administration.

In San Francisco, Chinese for Affirmative Action today also emphasized the community must mobilize to encourage full participation in the census.

“CAA will work closely with the City of San Francisco to ensure that all hard-to-count communities are receiving accurate and reliable information about the Census to dispel fear and motivate participation,” says Hong Mei Pang, Director of Advocacy at CAA. “We will ensure that our communities are receiving their fair share of resources and political representation, strengthen the safeguards available for immigrants, subvert panic and restore power to marginalized communities through a successful Census in 2020.”

“The inclusion of a citizenship questioned would have jeopardized our ability to have an accurate census count and ensure adequate funding for vital programs like Community Development Block Grants, housing vouchers, Medicaid, highway planning construction, and new schools. For every person that is not counted, a city could lose $2000 per person. An undercount would also result in states with large immigrant and minority populations such as California, New York, and Texas losing representation in Congress," said Rep. Judy Chu, D-CA.

“Those things are still at stake if the Census Bureau finds another way to justify the inclusion of the citizenship question before they print the 2020 Census, so we must continue to remain vigilant."

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Citizenship question: Emails reveal possible ties between the Census Bureau and GOP strategists

Newly discovered evidence contradicts the Trump administration’s claims that it added a citizenship question to the 2020 Census simply to enforce the federal Voting Rights Act, and confirms that the purpose was to deprive Asian and Latino Americans of constitutionally protected political representation.

The revelations from the email communications prompted two civil rights agencies to attempt to submit the new evidence to the courts, hoping to affect a Supreme Court decision that will be handed down later this month, perhaps as early as next week.

Court documents filed Friday (June 14) show that the current Chief of Staff to the Director of the U.S. Census Bureau was in direct contact with a Republican redistricting strategist in 2015, concerning issues related to the citizenship question.

The documents submitted to U.S. District Court Judge George J. Hazel on Friday reveal the first evidence of direct contact between Thomas B. Hofeller, a GOP strategist, and Christa Jones, a Census Bureau official, who was the main intermediary between the Census Bureau and Secretary Ross when the decision was issued in March of 2018.

"They eliminate any colorable doubt about the link between Hofeller and government employees involved in the citizenship question approval process," write plaintiffs' attorneys with the law firm Covington & Burling, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Asian Americans Advancing Justice — AAJC.

Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC (Advancing Justice | AAJC) and MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund) submitted the new evidence and on Tuesday, June 18, will ask Hazel to reconsider whether the administration conspired with others to intentionally discriminate against Latinos and non-citizens.

“While the Supreme Court has taken up legal claims to remove the Census citizenship question based on violation of the Administrative Procedures Act and the Enumeration clause of the Constitution, there remain very serious questions around the increasingly strong evidence of unconstitutional racial discrimination behind the citizenship question,” said Thomas A. Saenz, MALDEF president and general counsel. 

“These questions must be authoritatively resolved before the Census moves forward; our Census must be free of the horrible taint of unconstitutional discrimination.”

Late last month The New York Times revealed that Hofeller, now deceased, worked with the administration to include a citizenship question as a way to unlawfully advantage “Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites.”

The two civil rights advocates sued the Trump administration in May 2018 on behalf Latino and Asian American individuals, Native Americans, social service non-profits, state legislative associations, civil rights groups, voting rights organizations, and community partnerships that would be forced to divert resources to combat a potential severe undercount in their respective communities.

On April 5, 2019, Hazel ruled that the addition of the citizenship question violates the Administrative Procedure Act and the Enumeration Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The court, however, fell short of granting MALDEF’s and Advancing Justice | AAJC’s claim that the administration’s intention in adding the question was to discriminate against non-citizens and communities of color in the decennial Census, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fifth Amendment, and that members of the administration conspired to deprive racial minorities of their constitutional right to equal representation.

Census data are crucial to allocating seats in Congress, drawing accurate election districts and ensuring equitable distribution of federal funds for a wide range of vital programs.

MALDEF and Advancing Justice | AAJC filed an appeal on April 14th in the U.S. Court of Appeals 4th Circuit challenging Judge Hazel’s ruling on the question of whether the motive for adding the citizenship question was unconstitutionally discriminatory. That appeal is moving forward.

Read the brief HERE

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Texas' anti-immigrant law challenged in the courts

SCREEN CAPTURE

Texas State Rep. Gene Wu fought his emotions in  his statement against SB 4.

AS EXPECTED, Texas Gov, Greg Abbott signed SB 4 last Sunday, May 7, a bill that many contend is anti-immigrant and unconstitutional.

SB 4, known as the Sanctuary Cities law, strips local communities of their power to set local law enforcement policies regarding the treatment of immigrants and mandates that Texas local law enforcement agencies respond to unconstitutional immigration detainer requests. 

Although largely aimed at people who cross over the U.S. border shared with Mexico, the bill would affect anybody who "looks" like an immigrant or police "suspect" might be an undocumented immigrant. In other words, don't expect Canadians and Europeans to be asked to "show their papers."

"Senate Bill 4 is a solution in search of a problem," said State Representative Gene Wu, who gave an emotional argument against the bill. "This is a bill that has been crafted out of fear and hatred of immigrants ... The bill as passed, would not just detain criminals, but would target children, victims of crimes, and even immigrants who served in our armed forces." 

"In Texas, 8 percent of undocumented immigrants are from Asian countries, so the fear of mass deportations is a reality in the Asian community," said John Yang, President and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, a national civil rights organization, speaking at a press conference today.

SB 4 allows local law enforcement to ask individuals who are lawfully detained (even for a traffic stop) about their immigration status. Essentially, SB 4 requires Texans to “show their papers.”

RELATED: 

• Is scapegoating immigrants a real fear, or is it a strategy?
• One in 7 Asian/American immigrants are undocumented.

AAAJ joins the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF). the League of United Latino American Citizens (LULAC) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)  in condemning the proposed law) which would go into effect in September. Both civil rights organization are planning to challenge the law in court.

"This is a frivolous legal action, filed precipitously and without basis in the law," said Thomas A Saennz, president and general council of MALDEF. 

“SB 4 is constitutional, lawful and a vital step in securing our borders,” Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a prepared statement explaining why he filed the lawsuit, in which Austin, Travis County and the county's sheriff, Sally Hernandez, are named as defendants. “SB 4 guarantees cooperation among federal, state and local law enforcement to protect Texans. Unfortunately, some municipalities and law enforcement agencies are unwilling to cooperate with the federal government and claim that SB 4 is unconstitutional.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is cautioning people against traveling to Texas, after the state passed SB4, They vow to challenge the law in the courts.

“This law will create distrust between law enforcement and the communities they are sworn to serve and protect, which is why the police chiefs of several of Texas’ largest cities voiced concerns about the bill," said Vanita Gupta, incoming president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. 

"And, when other states enacted similar anti-immigrant measures, their economies suffered as companies and tourists chose to spend their money elsewhere. We welcome efforts to strike down this reprehensible anti-immigrant law in the courts.”

If Paxton's preemptive lawsuit was meant to scare away opponents, it seems to have backfired.

Yesterday, May 9, The League of United Latin American Citizens, Maverick County and the city of El Cenizo sued the state of Texas on Monday, claiming that SB 4 has failed to properly define a “sanctuary city,” and that the city and county — both on the border with Mexico — have kept their residents safe by choosing to operate as sanctuaries since 1999.

El Cenizo, in Webb County, has about 3,300 residents, many of whom are undocumented immigrants. The lawsuit claims that “Plaintiffs are safer when all people, including undocumented immigrants, feel safe when their local law enforcement officers can be trusted for reporting crimes or just speaking with them about issues in the community."

"SB 4 impermissibly extends immigration enforcement to local officials by forcing local government entities to cooperate with immigration enforcement efforts in a way that violates federal law both constitutionally and statutorily," said the LULAC complaint. 

In response to the lawsuit, Austin City Councilmember Greg Casar said he and his colleagues are being sued for questioning the constitutionality of “this immoral and unethical law.”

“Texas’ top leaders are trying to coerce local elected officials into betraying our immigrant communities,” Casar wrote. “They cannot crush our solidarity or our Constitution.”

The city of Austin said in a response they have opposed this legislation from the beginning. “Our law enforcement professionals have told us this legislation will make our community less safe by degrading the relationship between our residents and the police who protect them.”

"When I first spoke on this bill I couldn’t stop thinking about my boys," said Wu. "This bill and other laws like it are a constant reminder that, despite being born in this nation, they will be seen as outsiders because of the way they look; that the law will treat them with suspicion; and they will have to fight just to be treated equally. I was reminded that this is not the first time laws were passed against immigrants based on fear and hatred. And, it will not be the last."

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