Conservative Supreme Court Justices Seem Down to Make the 2020 Census More Racist
The Supreme Court’s conservative justices seem down to fuck over immigrants and the communities they live in come 2020, based on their tone in Tuesday’s oral arguments over the question of whether a citizenship question should be added to the census, the New York Times reported.
Dozens of civil rights groups, state attorneys general, the tech sector and privacy advocates, and even the American Library Association have said they oppose adding a question that would ask those surveyed to disclose their citizenship status—citing concerns that it would severely depress responsiveness among all immigrants, regardless of their citizenship status. Deeply inaccurate numbers could skew congressional districts and impact the allocation of billions of federal dollars come 2021. Even experts at the Census Bureau have recommended against including the question, according to Bloomberg. In a government estimate cited by the Times, adding a citizenship question could mean around 6.5 million people go uncounted.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is fighting for the addition, dubiously arguing that citizenship data would help enforce the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Leading up to the Supreme Court hearing the case, three federal trial judges found that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross ordered the question be added to nearly a year before he claimed he did, per the Times.