ACLU vows to challenge any Trump executive action on census citizenship question

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Thursday promised to immediately counter any executive action by President Trump that attempts to get a citizenship question on the 2020 census.

“If President Trump takes executive action, we will take legal action,” Dale Ho, the head of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, said in a statement.

A White House official confirmed to The Hill earlier Thursday that Trump will issue an executive order on the citizenship question.

{mosads}The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 last month against the question’s addition to the 2020 census, finding that the rationale for doing so was “contrived.” The justices sent the matter back to the Commerce Department to provide another reasoning.

While Trump’s allies believe the president taking executive action will boost the chances of the question’s inclusion on the population survey, legal experts told The Hill that the effort is certain to fail in court.

Ho said in his statement Thursday that Trump’s “effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census is unlawful,” noting that the “Supreme Court has spoken.”

The ACLU one of several parties that challenged the citizenship question’s inclusion on the census in federal court in New York and before the Supreme Court. The group has previously threatened to challenge any further efforts aimed at getting the citizenship question on the 2020 census.

The plaintiffs in the New York case filed a motion last week asking Judge Jesse Furman, an Obama appointee who is overseeing the legal proceedings, to amend a previous order to block the Trump administration from further altering the census to include a citizenship question.

There are currently several injunctions in place blocking the question from appearing on the census.