Trump drops census citizenship question, vows to get data from government

By Jeff Mason and David Shepardson

 

U.S. President Donald Trump stands with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Attorney General Bill Barr as he announces his administration's efforts to gain citizenship information during the 2020 census during an event in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, U.S., July 11, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump ended his quest on Thursday to add a contentious citizenship question to the 2020 census, but insisted he was not retreating from his fight against illegal immigration and said the government would obtain the data by combing through federal records.

 

"We are not backing down on our effort to determine the citizenship status of the United States population," Trump said in an announcement at the White House.

 

He said he was ordering every government agency to provide the Department of Commerce with all requested records regarding the number of citizens and non-citizens in the country.

 

"We will utilise these vast federal databases to gain a full, complete and accurate count of the non-citizen population, including databases maintained by the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration. We have great knowledge in many of our agencies," Trump said.

"We will leave no stone unturned," he said.

 

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he was dropping his effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census but will sign an executive order telling federal agencies to provide citizenship data to the Commerce Department. Rough Cut (no reporter narration).

"As a result of today's executive order we will be able to ensure the 2020 census generates an accurate count of how many citizens, non-citizens and illegal aliens are in the United States of America," Trump said at the White House.

 

Trump's plan to add the question to the census ran into a roadblock two weeks ago when the Supreme Court ruled against the administration, which had said new data on citizenship would help to better enforce the Voting Rights Act, which protects minority rights. The court ruled, in considering the litigation by challengers, that that rationale was "contrived."

 

Trump had been expected until a few hours before his remarks in the White House Rose Garden to go ahead despite that ruling by using an executive order to include the question, prompting some analysts to say he risked a constitutional crisis.

 

The U.S. Census Bureau is part of the Commerce Department. The Constitution specifically assigns the job of overseeing the census to Congress, which complicated adding the question to the once-a-decade nationwide survey via a presidential order.

 

Trump and other administration officials said they had changed strategy to avoid delaying the census. The Constitution mandates that everyone living in the United States be counted every 10 years. Printing of the forms is already underway.

 

"As a practical matter, the Supreme Court's decision closed all paths to adding the question to the 2020 census. Put simply, the impediment was a logistical impediment, not a legal one," Attorney General William Barr said at the event.

 

The high court had also ruled that asking about citizenship on the census was constitutional.

 

Critics of the effort said that asking about citizenship in the census would discriminate against racial minorities and was aimed at giving Republicans an unfair advantage in elections by lowering the number of responses from residents of areas more likely to vote Democratic.

 

Trump and his supporters say it makes sense to know how many non-citizens are living in the country.

 

"The data-sharing scheme described by the president…will be something that we watch with tremendous vigilance," said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

 

ELECTION CAMPAIGN

Republican Trump has made hard-line policies on immigration a feature of his presidency and his campaign for re-election in 2020. The more than 20 Democrats vying for their party's nomination to run against Trump question his immigration policies.

 

Opponents called Thursday's decision a defeat for the administration, but promised they would look closely to determine the legality of Trump's new plan to compile and use citizenship data outside of the census.

 

"Trump may claim victory today, but this is nothing short of a total, humiliating defeat for him and his administration," said Dale Ho, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, which helped represent immigrant rights groups in the legal case challenging the census question.

"He lost in the Supreme Court, which saw through his lie about needing the question for the Voting Rights Act. It is clear he simply wanted to sow fear in immigrant communities and turbocharge Republican gerrymandering efforts by diluting the political influence of Latino communities," Ho said.

The census is used to determine how many seats each state gets in the House of Representatives and also affects how billions of dollars in federal funds are doled out.

The legal battle has also extended to how the Department of Justice has handled the case. The department, led by Barr, a Trump appointee, sought to shake up its legal team by replacing the lawyers involved with handling litigation on the census.

 

On Wednesday, a second federal judge rejected the department's efforts, saying it had to offer detailed reasoning for the change.

 

Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings, chairman of the House of Representatives' Committee on Oversight and Reform, had said the House would vote on July 16 to hold Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in criminal contempt of Congress for failing to comply with subpoenas seeking information about the administration's attempts to add the census question.

 

(Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton, Doina Chiacu, Makini Brice and Eric Beech in Washington and Andrew Chung and Lauren LaCapra in New York; Writing by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Alistair Bell and Grant McCool)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-07-12

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13 minutes ago, webfact said:

U.S. President Donald Trump ended his quest on Thursday to add a contentious citizenship question to the 2020 census, but insisted he was not retreating from his fight against illegal immigration and said the government would obtain the data by combing through federal records.

 

Ah, one of those tactical non-retreat retreats. 

 

The rubber backbone Reality TV Con Man got owned once he realized there was no way forward. Now he has to save face by spouting some nonsense about getting the data "some other way".

 

 

Oh I see a devisive tweet storm coming lots of raw bloody meat for his base he will use this defeat to further devide us

Another wimp out. Even the smallest amount of pushback and he folds.

2 hours ago, webfact said:

Trump said.

"We will leave no stone unturned,"

But he's already turned all the stones over.  That's how he found his campaign team and cabinet members.

1 hour ago, ballpoint said:

But he's already turned all the stones over.  That's how he found his campaign team and cabinet members.

Oh, is that how he did it?! I always thought he did the bulk of his recruiting from the very bottom of the swamp. You know, the swamp he seems to have such a hard time draining.

Tougher than the wall that pesky swamp!

1 hour ago, Tug said:

Oh I see a devisive tweet storm coming lots of raw bloody meat for his base he will use this defeat to further devide us

He's gonna have to sharpen his tools to beat that "basket of deplorables" speech. It would belost to history if it weren't for the factthat a lot of people actually believe that.

5 minutes ago, lannarebirth said:

He's gonna have to sharpen his tools to beat that "basket of deplorables" speech. It would belost to history if it weren't for the factthat a lot of people actually believe that.

But but but Hillary. Who isn't even running for everything. Leaking much?

4 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

But but but Hillary. Who isn't even running for everything. Leaking much?

I ignored your other alias on the but, but, but thing. This wasn't even a comparison of persons but of disenfranchising rhetoric. No more, but, but, buts, please. 

5 hours ago, webfact said:

Trump may claim victory today, but this is nothing short of a total, humiliating defeat for him and his administration," said Dale Ho, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, which helped represent immigrant rights groups in the legal case challenging the census question.

"He lost in the Supreme Court, which saw through his lie about needing the question for the Voting Rights Act. It is clear he simply wanted to sow fear in immigrant communities and turbocharge Republican gerrymandering efforts by diluting the political influence of Latino communities," Ho said.

Well said. 

5 hours ago, webfact said:

Trump and other administration officials said they had changed strategy to avoid delaying the census. 

No, you changed strategy because the Supreme Court saw through your “contrived” excuses and rejected your attempts to add “the question”.

5 hours ago, webfact said:

"We will utilise these vast federal databases to gain a full, complete and accurate count of the non-citizen population, including databases maintained by the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration. We have great knowledge in many of our agencies," Trump said. 

"We will leave no stone unturned," he said.

Just more Trump rhetorical tropes even long after the tropes have gone stale.

6 hours ago, webfact said:

Trump and his supporters say it makes sense to know how many non-citizens are living in the country.

Well that may be admirable if indeed that was the purpose- BUT IT IS NOT!!!!

 

This is nothing short of open defiance of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. It’s part of a disturbing pattern for this bully boy to abuse his power and disregard the Constitution when he doesn’t get his way. When Trump failed to get his border wall, he tried to make an illegal end-run around the Constitution there too. This may work in authoritarian regimes—but not in a supposed democracy. Just as courts have responded by stopping Trump’s illegal border wall maneuver, his EO should be rejected by every Govt department. 

Oh, this is a great one! This is the sort of BS that sounds reasonable but, literally, ANYONE who has EVER worked in IT or data analysis knows what a non-starter this is. To clean a single government database so that it's validated is a work that Hercules would have rejected in favor of several additional Augean stables. To somehow link a series of databases built by different departments for different purposes from different times using different software and draw citizenship data out of it...good luck! 

2 minutes ago, expatfromwyoming said:

This is nothing short of open defiance of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. It’s part of a disturbing pattern for this bully boy to abuse his power and disregard the Constitution when he doesn’t get his way. When Trump failed to get his border wall, he tried to make an illegal end-run around the Constitution there too. This may work in authoritarian regimes—but not in a supposed democracy. Just as courts have responded by stopping Trump’s illegal border wall maneuver, his EO should be rejected by every Govt department. 

 

That's the thing I don't get. Lots of people say Trump is tearing down the institutions of democracy but as far as I can tell the institutions are standing firm and blocking him at every turn. That's something to celebrate. We knew when we constructed this government a couple of centuries ago that that was how it was supposed to work but it's nice to see that it actually works when tested.

Trump and data (facts?)... really desperate if he says he is going to use data. Virgin territory for him, hope he can find a guide he'd listen to... Oh wait, saying is not doing.

The scary thing is this petulant child, aka Baby Trump, still has the suport of around 40% of the American voters 

5 hours ago, zydeco said:

Another wimp out. Even the smallest amount of pushback and he folds.

So from Great Negotiator its the Great Pretender? Could make a song about that.

8 hours ago, webfact said:

Trump drops census citizenship question, vows to get data from government

That has been readily available for the asking.

Office of Immigration Statistics leads the collection and dissemination to Congress and the public of statistical information and analysis useful in evaluating the social, economic, environmental, and demographic impact of immigration laws, migration flows, and immigration enforcement.

https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics

But maybe Trump will get Mexico to pay for OIS' budget for FY 2020.

There is likely an intangible positive affect of Trump taking this direction for immigration data.

His case before the Supreme Court reveals now that he lied about the urgency of the citizen question, he lied about its purpose and he lied about the census being the sole source for the data.

The next time his DOJ is before the USSC to argue against the unconstitutionality of Trump's policies or Orders, the justices are likely to view DOJ arguments cautiously in terms of credibility without hard supporting evidence, almost like a District Court judicial review.

4 hours ago, Becker said:

Oh, is that how he did it?! I always thought he did the bulk of his recruiting from the very bottom of the swamp. You know, the swamp he seems to have such a hard time draining.

Tougher than the wall that pesky swamp!

To be fair, those had actually been clogging the drain, so needed moving first