The Supreme Court on Thursday dealt a severe blow to the Trump administration’s plan to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 Census. The court sent the case back to a lower court for additional review, which may not be complete in time for the question to be added to the census forms that are due to be printed in the coming months.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the court, said that while a citizenship question is constitutional, the Department of Commerce and Secretary Wilbur Ross misrepresented its actual intentions for adding the question. The department said the question was meant to help enforce the Voting Rights Act, but in fact, the court held “that evidence showed that the secretary was determined to reinstate a citizenship question from the time he entered office...a nd adopted the Voting Rights Act rationale late in the process.” This “reveal[s] a significant mismatch between the decision the secretary made and the rationale he provided.” In other words, Ross practically lied, and the case against him must now proceed.