Ken Cuccinelli, the acting chief of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said Sunday he thinks a citizenship question will find its way onto the 2020 census.
The Supreme Court last week seemed to derail President Trump’s push for the question with a 5-4 ruling that said while a citizenship question is legal, and has been asked before, the administration bungled the effort and gave a “contrived” explanation for why it wanted to add the question in to next year’s count.
Speaking to Fox News Sunday, Mr. Cuccinelli said the ruling left enough daylight for Mr. Trump to tweak things. The president has vowed to fight for the question, despite signs of capitulation by administration officials who said they were printing the questionnaires without it.
“I think the president has expressed determination. He’s noted that the Supreme Court didn’t say, ’This can’t be asked.’ They said that they didn’t appreciate the process by which is came forward the first time,” Mr. Cuccinelli, a former Virginia attorney general, told Fox. “So the president is determined to fix that, and to have it roll forward in the 2020 census.”
Mr. Trump on Friday said he may issue an executive order to get the question in, though it’s unclear what that would look like.
He also said the administration may print the census questionnaire and then issue an addendum later on, to get the citizenship question in.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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