Trump abandons bid to include citizenship question

US President Donald Trump abandoned his controversial bid to demand citizenship details from all respondents in next year’s census yesterday, instead directing federal agencies to try to compile the information using existing databases.

“It is essential that we have a clear breakdown of the number of citizens and non-citizens that make up the United States population,” Trump said. He insisted he was “not backing down”.

His reversal comes after the Supreme Court blocked his efforts to include the citizenship question and as the government had already begun the lengthy and expensive process of printing the census questionnaire without it.

Trump had said last week that he was “very seriously” considering an executive order to try to force the question’s inclusion, even though such a move would surely have drawn an immediate legal challenge.

But he said yesterday that he would instead be signing an executive order directing agencies to turn records over to the Department of Commerce.

The American Community Survey, which polls 3.5 million US households every year, already includes questions about respondents’ citizenship.

Critics have warned that including the citizenship question on the census would discourage participation, not only by those living in the country illegally but also by citizens who fear that participating will expose noncitizen family members to repercussions.

If immigrants are undercounted, Democrats fear that would pull money and political power away from Democratic-led cities where immigrants tend to cluster, and shift it to whiter, rural areas where Republicans do well.