U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman from NY said on Tuesday that the Trump administration is barred from adding a question about citizenship to the 2020 census. The Federal Judge said that while such a question would be constitutional, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had added it arbitrarily and not followed proper procedure. However, this decision won’t be the final word on the matter.
The ruling stems from a case in which a dozen states or big cities and immigrants’ rights groups argued that adding the question might deter immigrant households away from participating in the census. A separate suit on the same issue, filed by the state of California, is also underway in San Francisco.
The U.S. Supreme Court is prepared to address this issue in February.
