Trump Drops Census Citizenship Question But Sharpens His Focus on Discriminating Against Immigrants Through Redistricting 

Today, after a week of confusion and contradiction in the Trump Administration, the President announced that he will not pursue a citizenship question on the 2020 Census. To protect a fair and accurate Census, the decision to not add the citizenship question is important.  

However, in issuing an executive order to government agencies to hand over citizenship data, President Trump is engaging in an abusive power grab. Attorney General Barr reinforced the Administration’s intent to collect citizenship data for the purposes of reapportionment and redistricting. Using citizenship data to erase millions of people from apportionment and redistricting violates the Constitution.  

Statement from Kathay Feng, national redistricting director for Common Cause: 

“This administration’s efforts to weaponize the census and redistricting threaten to tear this country apart. We know from the Hofeller files that the plot to push citizen-only redistricting and reapportionment was intended to be “advantageous for Republicans and non-Hispanic whites.”  

Common Cause and our 1.2 million members and supporters will fight any attempt to draw legislative districts that does not include all people because every person in the United States deserves representation in our government. 

To view the study by top GOP gerrymanderer Thomas Hofeller, click here.