Donald Trump on Thursday ended his battle to add a citizenship question to the country’s census questionnaire.
TRUMP BACKS AWAY FROM ATTEMPT TO ADD CITIZENSHIP QUESTION TO 2020 CENSUS
Trump instead announced an executive order which would direct all government agencies to provide the Commerce Department with data and records regarding the number of citizens and noncitizens in the US.
Trump said it would allow for the ability to show how many citizens are in the country with 90 percent accuracy.
“It is essential that we have a clear breakdown of the number of citizens and noncitizens that make up the US population,” he said at a news conference in the White House Rose Garden. “We will leave no stone unturned,” he added.
Trump called for the inclusion of a question that would ask respondents whether they are US citizens or not in the upcoming census.
The fight to include the question has dragged on for weeks, with the Supreme Court sending the matter back to a lower court two weeks ago for further deliberations, raising doubts about whether the case would be resolved in time for the 2020 census. In a 5-4 decision, the court questioned the administration’s rationale for including the citizenship question in the census, calling it insufficient.