Citizenship Question

View a PDF of Talking Points here.

Adding a Citizenship Question to the Census: What’s at Stake

Efforts to add a citizenship question to the decennial census did not begin or end with the 2020 Census; these efforts have persisted for decades and continue today. The push is part of a broader strategy to manipulate who counts in our democracy by undercounting immigrant communities and communities of color. Even though the Supreme Court blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to include the question in the 2020 Census, it did so on procedural (albeit statutory) grounds, not because the question itself was found to be unconstitutional. This means the door is open for renewed attempts to collect citizenship and/or immigration status data in the census, through executive action, legislation, or policy riders attached to funding bills.