Questions about citizenship communicate between Thomas Hofeller and Christa Jones: NPR



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Protesters gather in the Supreme Court in April as judges hear arguments about the Trump government's plan to add a citizenship issue to the 2020 census forms.

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J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Protesters gather in the Supreme Court in April as judges hear arguments about the Trump government's plan to add a citizenship issue to the 2020 census forms.

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

A senior Census Bureau official privately discussed the issue of citizenship with GOP restructuring strategist Thomas Hofeller in 2015, according to e-mails cited in a new court case in the legal battle over question of the potential census.

A community organizing group and other people disputing the issue in Maryland contend that the communication shows that at least one Census Bureau official had long been aware of Hofeller's interest in a citizenship issue , which, according to the complainants, prompted the administration to include the question in forms. the 2020 census.

"They eliminate any unfathomable doubt about the relationship between Hofeller and the government employees involved in the process of approving the citizenship issue," plaintiffs' attorneys at Covington & Burling's law firm write, of the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund and the American Advanced Justice – AAJC.

These new revelations follow earlier discoveries on Hofeller's hard drives, discovered by his separated daughter after his death last year. They include a document with a paragraph on the use of the voting rights law to justify a citizenship issue. The complainants allege that this record shows that Hofeller helped the administration officials to find a way to conceal their true intentions through a "carefully orchestrated ploy".

Citing an unpublished study by Hofeller, the plaintiffs argued that the government actually wanted a citizenship issue in order to give Republicans and non-Hispanic Whites a political advantage in the creation of new constituencies after the census of Canada. ;next year.

E-mails released on Friday show that Christa Jones – a long-time Census Bureau employee who currently serves as chief of staff to the bureau's director, Steven Dillingham – had been in contact with Hofeller as early as 2010, using both his official email address of the Census Bureau and an e-mail. Hotmail address. In a January 2015 email, Jones sent a link to a Federal Register notice in which the public was asked to comment prior to field testing for possible changes to the census questions.

"It can also be an opportunity to mention citizenship," Jones added in a follow-up email the next day.

A few months later, Hofeller will complete his unpublished study explaining how census responses to a citizenship question could be used to draw political maps that would reduce the voting power of Latinx.

However, in a previous case, lawyers from the Department of Justice – who represent the administration in these cases – asserted that Hofeller had played "a limited or nonexistent role in defending a question of citizenship "to the civil servants of the administration and had not participated in the drafting. official letter from the administration to the Census Bureau asking the question.

The government says it wants the issue to better protect the voting rights of racial minorities.

But three federal judges, including US District Judge George Hazel in Maryland, decided that this was not the real reason the administration had insisted that the issue be resolved – an issue that is currently before the Supreme Court.

Jones and a Census Bureau spokesperson did not immediately respond to NPR's requests for comment, nor did the spokesman for the Department of Justice.

In the months leading up to the announcement by the administration, in March 2018, of the addition of a question on citizenship, Mr. Jones had advised the acting director of the office, Ron Jarmin, who is now the deputy director. Trade Department officials under pressure from Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to get the census question turned to Jones as the point of contact.

"Christa was my liaison there to make sure we could get a quick response from the census," said a Department of Commerce official, Sahra Park-Su, during a lawsuit. "If she answered, it would be a good idea of ​​what was going on in the census."

Last year, in an email addressed to Jarmin about conservative groups that Ross might address while weighing the pros and cons of adding an issue of citizenship, Jones suggested contacting Mark Krikorian and Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies. Both advocates have long advocated using the answers to a question on citizenship to exclude non-citizens from the census counts that determine the share of congressional seats allocated to each state.

Next week, plaintiffs' lawyers will go to the US court in Maryland to ask Judge Hazel to reconsider an allegation that the Trump administration wanted to discriminate against immigrant communities of color by adding the following question: "This person is she a citizen states? " Hazel is also considering a request for reconsideration of new evidence that, according to the complainants, shows that government officials conspired to violate the constitutional rights of these communities.

Hazel's earlier decision blocked the administration's plans with respect to the issue, but did not conclude that there was sufficient evidence to support the allegations of conspiracy or discrimination made by the plaintiffs in Maryland. The decision was appealed to the US Court of Appeals 4th Circuit.

The hearing before Judge Hazel is set for June 18 – a day after the Supreme Court released its next set of rulings, which could include a ruling on similar citizenship actions based in New York. Earlier this week, plaintiffs in New York cases asked the judges to postpone the decision until a lower court in Manhattan could complete the examination of the evidence provided by the courts. Hofeller documents of an alleged concealment within the administration of the origins of the issue.

A study previously published by the Census Bureau shows the following question: "Is this person a citizen of the United States?" – is likely to deter non-citizen households from participating in the constitutionally enumerated census of each person living in the country. This resulted in numerous prosecutions of the issue raised by states, cities and other groups, who wondered how this issue could affect the accuracy of census counts and the sharing of political representation. and federal funding over the next decade.

Census data are used to determine each state's share of Congressional seats and electoral college votes, to draw new electoral districts, and to guide the approximate $ 880 billion per year in federal taxes for schools. , roads and other public services to local communities.

As the legal battle around the issue continues, the Census Bureau faces a lack of time to finalize the forms for enumeration at the national level next year. The office has been waiting since the courts decide whether the census can include the issue. Agency officials stated that the printing of 1.5 billion forms, letters and other mailings for the census was to begin on July 1 to avoid disrupting the final stage of census preparation.

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