On Tuesday, the US Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared all set to hand President Trump a victory on his plan to add a citizenship question to the US Census 2020 form. Opponents are calling this move Republicans efforts to obviate immigrants from taking part.
During arguments, Conservatives justices justified the administration’s use of citizenship question in the decennial population count. However, some Liberals expressed antagonism towards allowing the question.
Conservative justice justified the citizenship question as eminently reasonable. Other countries also use this question. Not just that, even the US has done so in the past, the likewise or different way.
Out of 5-4 conservative justices, 2 were appointed by Trump such as Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts. These supported the citizenship question.
Opponents said that this will frighten immigrants and Latinos from filling up the US Census 2020 forms. They will fear about leaking information to law enforcement.
This will benefit Trump’s Republicans and their leaning parts whereas it will degrade Democratic electoral representation in Democrat-leaning areas.
The US Census is used to distribute around $800 million in federal funds & allot seats in the US House of Representatives.
Lower courts said that administration is violating federal law as well as the US Constitution by include citizenship question on the US census 2020 form.
During the whole argument, Conservative justices seemed quite inclined to allow citizenship question. They think that question would yield better data to enforce the Voting Rights Act. Thus, it will protect eligible voters from discrimination.
Both Roberts and Kavanaugh supported citizenship question, mentioning it as quite a common question. They both gave different statements showing their will to approve the question on the US Census 2020 form.
The census case is lead by New York State which usually comes in a pair of lawsuits by a group of states and localities. It is also led by collusion of the immigrant rights group. They challenge the legality of the question by the administration.
The US Supreme Court has always handed major victories to Trump. In June 2018, it approved his travel ban directly targeting Muslim majority country people. The court also barred many transgender from the US military to go into effect by allowing Trump’s policy.
Notably, the US census 2020 forms are yet to print in the coming months.
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