A federal judge in Maryland ruled against the Trump administration’s desired citizenship question on the 2020 census, marking the third federal court to declare the question unconstitutional. According to NPR, U.S. District Judge George Hazel said the addition of the question on the census would create obstacles for the government to count every person living in the U.S. “at a time of increased immigration enforcement and anti-immigrant rhetoric.” Judges in New York and California reportedly also ruled the census question was unconstitutional, with California Judge Richard Seeborg saying that the question was “nothing more than a pretext designed to provide cover for the [Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’] unexplained desire to add the citizenship question to the census.” The Supreme Court is slated to hear arguments about the question in late April and is scheduled to rule on the constitutionality of the census question by June.
