The Trump Administration recently suffered a setback when the U.S. Supreme Court denied an appeal to have a question about citizenship on the 2020 Census form. But despite fake news reports to the contrary, President Donald Trump and his legal team are determined to win the issue.
Although the high court has impeded the Trump Administration from including the citizenship question in a 5-4 decision, Chief Justice John. G. Roberts penned the opinion that leaves the door open. In his decision, Roberts reportedly states that the administration’s reasoning “appears to have been contrived.” Resist and obstruct Democrats hailed the decision as a win. But the president has shown the temerity to fight issues until the bitter end, win or lose. The citizenship question window may be narrowing, but the battle is not over.
“So important for our Country that the very simple and basic ‘Are you a Citizen of the United States?’ question be allowed to be asked in the 2020 Census,” President Trump tweeted on the Fourth of July.
Recent polls indicate that upwards of 66 percent of Americans approve of the citizenship question appearing on the Census. Democrats have argued its presence will suppress participation. However, the Blue States touting sanctuary policies understand that non-citizens would not be included in federal funding and grants based on population.
Justice Roberts wrote that the Department of Justice attorneys must “offer genuine justifications for important decisions, reasons that can be scrutinized by courts and the interested public. Accepting contrived reasons would defeat the purpose of the enterprise. If judicial review is to be more than an empty ritual, it must demand something better than the explanation offered for the action taken in this case.”
The Census litigation team has reportedly been shuffled, and new legal arguments are being crafted to persuade the Roberts to swing his vote back to the conservative wing.
“The Department of Justice … and Commerce have been asked to reevaluate all available options,” a Justice Department filing stated after the decision. Officials “have been instructed to examine whether there is a path forward, consistent with the Supreme Court’s decision, that would allow for the inclusion of the citizenship question on the census.”
The lack of direction provided by the high court has been a source of frustration for the DOJ, and false reports have circulated that the Trump Administration threw in the towel. The New York Times, an outlet often cited as “fake news” by the president, erroneously reported the administration was prepared to remove the question citing unnamed sources.
“The News Reports about the Department of Commerce dropping its quest to put the Citizenship Question on the Census is incorrect or, to state it differently, FAKE,” Trump tweeted. “We are absolutely moving forward, as we must, because of the importance of the answer to this question.”
After the president set the record straight, Obama-era cronies were enlisted by the liberal media to decry the ongoing fight.
“This is an absurd filing,” former Obama Administration solicitor reportedly said. “They don’t even explain how their “re-evaluation” of census Q is possible after telling the Supreme Court 5 separate times that everything had to be decided by June 30.”
Options have been floated to revisit the court ruling with enhanced reasoning and add the citizenship question on a separate form. Other strategies have included the president issuing an Executive Order not reviewable by the courts.
“We’re thinking about doing that. It’s one of the ways — we have four or five ways we can do it. It’s one of the ways that we’re thinking about doing it very seriously,” Trump said. “We can also add an addition on. So, we can start the printing now and maybe do an addendum after we get a positive decision. So, we’re working on a lot of things, including an executive order.”
Political pundits find the current fight over the citizenship question a win-win for President Trump. Americans overwhelmingly approve of the question, and taxpayers are unhappy their money would be funneled to illegal immigrants. Even if Democrats keep the question off of the 2020 Census, it will cost them votes and seats in Congress.
