President Donald Trump said he’ll continue to fight to include a citizenship question in the U.S. census after the Supreme Court put the plan on hold.
The president’s message — delivered Wednesday via Twitter — comes a day after the administration said it was abandoning its hard-fought plan to include a citizenship question in the 2020 census.
“The News Reports about the Department of Commerce dropping its quest to put the Citizenship Question on the Census is incorrect or, to state it differently, FAKE! We are absolutely moving forward, as we must, because of the importance of the answer to this question,” Trump tweeted.
It wasn’t clear what legal strategy the administration would employ after the Supreme Court ruling. But a Justice Department lawyer told a federal judge that the agency was asked to consider ways to salvage the question.
“We at the Department of Justice have been instructed to examine whether there is a path forward, consistent with the Supreme Court’s decision, that would allow us to include the citizenship question on the census,” Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt told a federal judge in Maryland. “We think there may be a legally available path under the Supreme Court’s decision. We’re examining that, looking at the near-term options to see whether that’s viable and possible.”
Hunt’s comments indicate the U.S. is studying if it can salvage the question but hasn’t definitely concluded it can do so. U.S. District George Hazel gave the U.S. until Friday at 2 p.m. to definitely answer what it doing.