Enumeration Clause of the Constitution states that Congress must count or conduct an “actual enumeration” of the entire population of the United States, including those individuals who lack U.S. citizenship.
But now the Trump Administration wants the Department of Commerce, the government agency who administers the census, to insert a citizenship question in the survey.
The move in 2018 to add the question has caused such an outcry of opposition, that it’s now being reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court, which must decide if the administration took the proper steps in their assessment to offer up the citizenship question.
"Court observers say the legal question will likely come down to whether Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had the actual authority to reinstate the citizenship question to the census roughly 70 years after it last appeared on the survey.
The administration has argued in briefs to the Supreme Court that Ross acted well within his rights to add the question, citing Congress’s decision to hand over administration of the census to the Commerce Department under the Census Act."- The Hill
House Democrats and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) will be on hand to argue their point that the question is unconstitutional.
Democrats like Sen. Kamala Harris, a 2020 presidential candidate, believe that the Trump administration citizenship question is “a blatant attempt to suppress immigrant families” from taking part of the census next year.
Harris is pushing the Every Person Counts Act, a Democratic billed introduced earlier this year, that would “ensure the integrity of the census is protected.”
Harris is one of 19 co-sponsors of the bill.
