What is the US census citizenship question? The controversy explained

The government plans to ask people taking part in the 2020 national census if they are US citizens – and the supreme court appears to be leaning in favor of approval. We break down the issue:

What is the citizenship question?

Donald Trump’s administration proposed adding a question to the 2020 US census which would ask: “Is this person a citizen of the United States?” Respondents would have five options, indicating that they were born in the US, born in a US territory, born abroad to US citizen parents, naturalized as a citizen, or not a citizen. The census is conducted every 10 years to count the people living in the US.

Why are states suing to stop it?

They believe many immigrants will not return their census forms if there’s a citizenship status question, out of fear the information could be used against them. That would have major political and financial ramifications: census counts are used to decide how many seats each state gets in the congressional House of Representatives. An undercount of immigrants would especially hurt representation of states such as New York and California. The census numbers also determine how much federal funding states and cities receive. The states argue the plan is unconstitutional.

How does the government explain the question?

The commerce department, which is in charge of the census, says it decided to add the question at the request of the justice department, which argued it was necessary to help enforce the Voting Rights Act. The law offers protections for minority voters, so the department argues that in order to administer it effectively, it needs to know how many eligible voters live where. Only US citizens are eligible to vote.

Is that their real motive?

This is at the heart of the dispute. Documents have emerged showing the commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, discussed the citizenship question with immigration hardliners including Steve Bannon, then the White House chief strategist, and the former Kansas secretary of state Kris Kobach before getting any request from the DoJ, pushed staffers to get the question added, and discussed getting justice to make the request.

And Donald Trump has weighed in with an argument that contradicted his administration’s stated rationale. “The American people deserve to know who is in this Country,” he said on Twitter. “Yesterday, the Supreme Court took up the Census Citizenship question, a really big deal. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Has the census asked about citizenship before?

Yes. The citizenship question was on every census between 1890 and 1950, but has not been on the standard census form since then. Currently, the government gets citizenship data from the American Community Survey, which is done every year but only goes out to a small number of US households.

What have lower courts said?

Three lower courts, in New York, California and Maryland, have ruled against the plan. Two of the judges said that asking about citizenship would be unconstitutional, violating the provision that says the census must fully enumerate people living in the United States. The third judge said that the question could be constitutional, but that Ross did not follow proper administrative procedures to add it.

How are things looking at the supreme court?

A majority of the justices appeared to be leaning toward approving the question during arguments on Tuesday. The court seemed to be divided along ideological lines, with the five conservative justices showing skepticism about the challenge to the question, while the four liberal justices grilled the Trump administration lawyers.

When will the case be decided?

A decision is expected by late June.