The administration finally saw the writing on the wall, realizing that the deadline to print the census materials foreclosed a protracted legal battle. After Trump spoke on July 11, Attorney General William Barr said, "The Supreme Court closed all paths to adding the question. We simply cannot complete the litigation in time to carry out the census."
Trump's announcement that his administration will instead use information from federal databases to gather citizenship information raises its own civil rights concerns. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is developing the largest database of biographic and biometric data on both citizens and non-citizens in the United States. DHS plans to share the data with federal, state and local agencies.
The database that DHS currently uses has produced false positives in identifying people violating the immigration laws 42 percent of the time. Moreover, the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement are utilizing driver's license databases for facial recognition in investigations, without consent. Inaccuracies in this system lead to misidentification and false arrests.
Trump's intent in pursuing the citizenship question was never about enforcing the Voting Rights Act. "It is clear he simply wanted to sow fear in immigrant communities and turbocharge Republican gerrymandering efforts by diluting the political influence of Latino communities," Ho said.
The confusing machinations in the case may still deter immigrants from answering the census even though they will not be asked about their citizenship. Moreover, Trump's retreat on the citizenship question came three days before his administration plans to conduct mass raids on immigrants around the country. In chilling fashion, the Trump administration is reminding us that adding a citizenship question to the census is not its only tool for instilling fear and terror in immigrant communities.
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