How the Trump Administration Fought to Ask About Citizenship on the Census

Resistance from Inside

The Justice Department's long-sought request finally materialized on Dec. 12. Three pages long, it called the citizenship issue "critical" to get precise enough data on enforce the Voting Rights Act. Citizenship data from the American Community Survey, it said, was not granular enough.

Census Bureau experts say that it is untrue, noting that the Voting Rights Act has been enforced since 1965 with data from the community survey or its equivalent. Regardless, the new question feels Census Bureau staff scrambling. Because there are so few questions on the census, making crucial responses crucial, the bureau typically field-tests new questions for years before deciding whether or not to use them.

Now Ron S. Jarmin, the office's acting director, had just months to complete the evaluation of the April 1, the deadline to notify Congress of the 2020 issues.

But inside the office, John M. Abowd, concluding that the question was unnecessary. By melding existing data, he wrote, the bureau could give more answers.

A citizenship question "is very costly, the quality of the census count, and would use substantially less accurate citizenship status data than are available from administrative sources," he wrote. It also would have at least 630,000 households from completing the form.

Mr. Jarmin, acting director, asked the Justice Department on Mr. Abowd's findings. But Mr. Sessions is very pleased that, short documents show, ordering underlings.

News of the request, meanwhile, unleashed storms of protest from demographers, trained census directors, and stakeholders – shopping-center operators, philanthropies, even A.C. Nielsen, the marketing research colossus – that depends on accurate census results. The Scientific Advisory Board of the Scientific Advisory Board of the United States referred to the question "a serious mistake which would result in a substantial lowering of the response rate."