The Citizenship Question Won’t Be on the 2020 Census. Here's What That Means for Dallas and Texas

Updated July 2 at 4 p.m. with Trump administration's decision to drop citizenship question“Is this person a citizen of the United States?”The Supreme Court ruled last week that the controversial question that has so far dominated the entire conversation around the decennial census may not be asked of every U.S. household next year. And on Tuesday afternoon, the Trump administration backed off its last-gasp efforts to delay the census to seek a new avenue to add the question. But even without the question’s presence, the Census Bureau still faces the possibility of undercounts, particularly of children, immigrants and communities of color.Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the court’s liberal wing in a 5-4 vote saying that the Trump administration’s explanation for adding the citizenship question didn’t match up with the paper trail. The question hasn’t been asked of all U.S. households since 1950.National and state nonprofit groups and politicians have argued for months now that the question could have led to immigrant families opting to not respond, leading to an undercount of Latinos, a group that has contributed significantly to Texas’ growth over the past 10 years. Here’s what the court's ruling and the Trump administration's could mean for Dallas and Texas as a whole:Advocates and Census Bureau still face uphill battleBoth national and local advocates have said that the mere possibility of citizenship status being asked was weighing on immigrant communities. Arturo Vargas, CEO of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund, told the Dallas Morning News in May that his organization had been to community events where the citizenship question was “all they want to talk about.”   Continue reading...