WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.) issued the following statement in response to President Trump’s executive order on collecting citizenship data.
“The Supreme Court has made it clear: no citizenship question for the 2020 Census. Questionnaires are being printed now. But that isn’t stopping President Trump from continuing to push this issue and find another way for his administration to skirt the rule of law and keep stoking fear among our immigrant communities.
“The Constitution sets out a decennial census to count persons. The goal is to make sure everyone within our borders is counted, not push people further into the shadows, which is exactly what the citizenship question would do. The president knows it, which is why he continues to keep this alive; along with the regular threat of deportation raids, and what can only be described as criminal treatment of asylum seekers.
“I intend to work with my congressional colleagues to confirm that President Trump’s latest, cynical push to use data from other federal departments to count citizens vs non-citizens will have no bearing on the official, decennial data compiled by the Census Bureau. Congress also must ensure that privacy laws are respected and that any shared citizenship information is not misused by the Trump Administration.”