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A federal judge in Maryland ruled Friday against the government's addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 census, the third decision against the Trump administration on the subject.
Judge George J. Hazel, of the Maryland District Court in Greenland, found that the government had violated administrative law by deciding to add the issue last year. The decision, like two previous ones, will likely be the subject of an appeal to the Supreme Court.
In his decision, Hazel wrote: "The unreasonable nature of adding an issue of citizenship to the census by the accused is highlighted by the lack of real need for the citizenship question, the process cruelly deficient that led to this issue, the mysterious and potentially inappropriate considerations that motivated the decision and the clear pretext offered to the public ".
Hazel did not find sufficient evidence to support the complainants' claims that the government intended to discriminate against immigrants, Latin Americans and Americans of Asian descent adding the question or adding that this issue was part of a conspiracy within the Trump administration aimed at violating the constitutional rights of non-citizens. and people of color.
[Read the decision: Maryland federal judge’s ruling on census citizenship question]
"We are disappointed with this decision. Our government has the legal right to include a citizenship issue in the census and US citizens have a legal obligation to respond, "said Kelly Laco, spokesperson for the Department of Justice.
The Commerce Department declined to comment.
The announcement of the issue by Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross in March 2018 caused an uproar among former directors of the Census Bureau, statisticians, civil rights organizations and Democratic legislators.
Opponents said the late addition, which has not undergone the years of planning and testing that the new issues usually do, would lead to undercoverage among immigrant communities and would have affect the funding, distribution and restructuring of the federal government. They noted that the bureau's own analysis revealed that adding the question could compromise the accuracy of the survey. The government said it needed the issue to better enforce the law on voting rights.
After two federal judges in New York and California this year have ordered the government to end its plans to add the issue, the Supreme Court should take up the issue on April 23.
This will be one of the last oral arguments heard by the High Court, and the judges have put themselves in a position to exceed their hearing by one hour if they deem it necessary.
Although three district judges have ruled, the case is judged unusually by the High Court: no appeal court has considered the decisions, which is usually a prerequisite for the court 's decision. review of the Supreme Court. Both parties agreed that there was not enough time for this because the forms had to be sent to the printer and the question of adding the citizenship question had to be resolved before the end of the year. June, when the mandate of the Supreme Court expires.
The court has already asked for information on the two issues on which Hazel is sitting on the plaintiffs side.
[House Democrats grill Secretary of Commerce over citizenship question]
In all three trials, the Trump administration had violated the law on administrative procedure, which governs the process of creating and regulating federal agencies. In addition, the judges of Maryland and California held that the issue was unconstitutional because it would interfere with the constitutional obligation to "carry out an" effective enumeration "of the population every 10 years.
The lawsuits argued that Ross was unaware of the long-standing protocol for adding a question and was going against the expert opinion criticizing the plan.
The Secretary's changing statements about the origin of the request to add the question were a key element. Last spring, Ross had told Congress that he was responding to a December 2017 Justice Department request, but the lawsuits revealed emails stating that he had asked the department to make this request.
E-mails also showed Ross that Stephen had already discussed the addition a few months earlier with Stephen K. Bannon, while Bannon was the chief strategist of the White House, as well as with Kris Kobach, then secretary State of Kansas.
In its decision, Hazel concluded that the reason given by the government to add the question to the case was "a mere pretense".
"The Secretary's statements, as well as the e-mails and documents contained in the administrative file, state that the Secretary was urgently reviewing a citizenship-related matter well before he became aware of the alleged motive. Application of the VRA, which, according to the record, was manufactured by his staff, "he wrote.
"At best, the secretary ignored the obvious evidence that the question of citizenship would be detrimental to the distributive accuracy of the census for a mysterious reason known only to him. In the worst case, the secretary intended to negatively affect the distributive accuracy of the census by reducing the response rates of immigrants to the census. Both possibilities do not take into account the need for effective enumeration of the population – the constitutional purpose of the census.
The plaintiffs in the Maryland case had additional claims. A, LUPE c. Wilbur Ross et al., accused the government of conspiracy, alleging that the government had added the issue "to reduce the number of immigrant-colored communities, thereby reducing the impact of this population on the political power and benefits that 39, he removed ", and that Ross" had elaborated the justification of the Voting Rights Act with the help of the Department of Justice to conceal the true purpose of the defendants. "
[Trump says census would be ‘meaningless’ without citizenship question]
The other trial in the Maryland trial, Kravitz et al. United States Department of Commerce et al. stated that the issue would be detrimental to a wide range of people – including US citizens – living in areas such as Prince George County, which have a high proportion of immigrants and minorities and are likely to be under -estimées. Residents of Prince George have expressed concern that the issue will cause them to lose the services they rely on, such as widening the road and special education programs.
Although Hazel did not find evidence to support the allegations of conspiracy and intent to discriminate, the complainants had demonstrated that there was "substantial risk" That the addition of the issue lead to an underestimation of Hispanics and non-citizens that would result in a dilution of the votes resulting from the new distribution of votes. bad distribution of seats in Congress, as well as a loss of federal funding in their areas.
The Maryland trial is the only one that has established that the issue of citizenship would harm people, said Shankar Duraiswamy, a lawyer in Covington and Burling, senior plaintiffs' lawyer in the Kravitz case.
"I think this makes the impact of the issue on individuals and communities who have a high rate of Latinos and non-citizens particularly concrete," he said.
"Some will lose a seat in Congress and will all live in areas that will lose their voting power because of the redistricting process in their states," he said. "They will be drawn into overcrowded constituencies, so their votes will be less than the inhabitants of other regions that have fewer Latin American citizens and non-citizens."
Friday's decision sends a strong message to the Supreme Court in the case, said Thomas Wolf, Democracy Program Attorney at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.
"The question of citizenship is only getting brighter with today 's decision from the Maryland District," he said. "Supreme Court justices will have to think for a long time before coming back to decisions made against the citizenship issue by three separate courts."
The Trump administration – in general, and especially in this case – insisted on involving the Supreme Court. He feels he has more chances with the conservative majority of the court than more liberal judges in district and appeal courts. The strategy was confirmed in the last quarter when the Supreme Court upheld Trump's ban on travel to nationals of some Muslim-majority countries after multiple defeats in lower courts.
Robert Barnes contributed to this report.
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