Trump drops bid for census question

Agencies to gather the data elsewhere

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump abandoned his controversial bid to inject a citizenship question into next year’s census, instead directing federal agencies Thursday to try to compile the information using existing databases.

He insisted he was “not backing down,” declaring in a Rose Garden announcement that the goal was simple and reasonable: “a clear breakdown of the number of citizens and noncitizens that make up the United States population.”

But the decision was clearly a reversal after the Supreme Court blocked his effort by disputing his administration’s rationale for demanding that census respondents declare whether not they were citizens. Mr. Trump said last week that he was “very seriously” considering an executive order to try to force the question. But the government has already begun the lengthy and expensive process of printing the census questionnaire without it, and such a move would surely have drawn an immediate legal challenge.

Instead, Mr. Trump said Thursday that he would be signing an executive order directing every

federal department and agency to provide the Commerce Department with all records pertaining to the number of citizens and noncitizens in the country.

Mr. Trump’s efforts to add the question on the decennial census had drawn fury and backlash from critics who complained that it was political and meant to discourage participation, not only by people living in the country illegally but also by citizens who fear that participating would expose noncitizen family members to repercussions.

Dale Ho, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project and the lawyer who argued the Supreme Court case, celebrated Thursday’s announcement by the president, saying: “Trump’s attempt to weaponize the census ends not with a bang but a whimper.”

Mr. Trump said his order would apply to every agency, including the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration. The Census Bureau already has access to Social Security, food stamp and federal prison records, all of which contain citizenship information.

Mr. Trump, citing Census Bureau projections, predicted that using previously available records, the administration could determine the citizenship of 90 percent of the population “or more.”

“Ultimately, this will allow us to have a more complete count of citizens than through asking the single question alone,” he contended.

But it is still unclear what Mr. Trump intends to do with the citizenship information. Federal law prohibits the use of census information to identify individuals, though that restriction has been breached in the past.

At one point, Mr. Trump suggested it could help states that “may want to draw state and local legislative districts based upon the voter- eligible population.” That would mark a change from how districts are drawn currently, based on the entire population, and could increase Republican political power.

The Census Bureau had stressed repeatedly that it could produce better citizenship data without adding the question.

In fact, the bureau had recommended combining information from the annual American Community Survey with records held by other federal agencies that already include citizenship records.

But Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who oversees the Census Bureau, rejected that approach and ordered the citizenship question be added to the census.