MONTEREY COUNTY — A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from adding a question about citizenship to the 2020 Census, a ruling that will almost certainly be challenged and wind its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In May, Monterey County became one of five counties across the U.S. to join the lawsuit, along with 18 states, eight cities, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
“I’m proud that Monterey County is once again a national leader on challenging the untested and politically motivated citizenship question on the 2020 Census,” said Monterey County Supervisor Luis Alejo. “Our federal courts have again ruled against the Trump Administration and this decision will help us ensure that everyone is counted in the next census.”
In a 277-page decision, Judge Jesse M. Furman ruled that, while a question on citizenship would be constitutional, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had added it arbitrarily and not followed proper administrative procedures.
Among other things, the judge said, Ross didn’t follow a law requiring that he give Congress three years’ notice of any plan to add a question about citizenship to the census.
“He failed to consider several important aspects of the problem; alternately ignored, cherry-picked, or badly misconstrued the evidence in the record before him; acted irrationally both in light of that evidence and his own stated decisional criteria; and failed to justify significant departures from past policies and practices,” Furman wrote.
The census counts every resident in the country every 10 years, even those here illegally. The data is used to decide the number of seats each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives, while also determining how federal funds are distributed to local communities, which is estimated at $675 billion a year.
The plaintiffs also argued that the Commerce Department, which designs the census, had failed to properly analyze the effect the question would have on households where immigrants live.
According to Deputy City Manager Tamara Vides, Watsonville receives about $2,000 for every resident counted. That also means, she noted, the city loses $2,000 for every resident that is not counted.
Because Watsonville and nearby Monterey County have a large population of migrants in a densely populated area, it has been difficult for census workers to get an accurate count.
“We have too much on the line especially since (Monterey) county has the highest percentage of non-citizens out of any county in California,” Alejo said. “Although this case will likely be appealed to our nation’s highest court, we are confident that justice will prevail and that this question will be left off in the end.”
A trial on a separate suit on the same issue, filed by the state of California, is underway in San Francisco. The U.S. Supreme Court is also poised to address the issue Feb. 19, meaning the legal issue is far from decided for good.
In a prepared statement, Justice Department spokeswoman Kelly Laco said the agency is “disappointed,” and that it is “reviewing” the ruling.
In the New York case, the plaintiffs accused the Trump administration of adding the question to intentionally discourage immigrants from participating, which could lead to a population undercount — and possibly fewer seats in Congress — in places that tend to vote Democratic.
Even people in the U.S. legally, they said, might dodge the census questionnaire out of fears they could be targeted by a hostile administration.
The Justice Department argued that Ross had no such motive.
Ross’ decision to reinstate a citizenship question for the first time since 1950 was reasonable because the government has asked a citizenship question for most of the past 200 years, Laco said.
When Ross announced the plan in March, he said the question was needed in part to help the government enforce the Voting Rights Act, a 1965 law meant to protect political representation of minority groups.
Furman, appointed to the bench by former President Barack Obama, said, “Finally, and perhaps most egregiously, the evidence is clear that Secretary Ross’s rationale was pretextual,” meaning Voting Rights Act enforcement was not his real reason.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose office was among those that litigated the lawsuit, called the decision a win for “Americans who believe in a fair and accurate count of the residents of our nation.”
•••
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
