Donald Trump’s desire to please his racist base has played out in courtrooms all over the country. He’s tried ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Act, locking families in separate cages, and mass deportations, only to be blocked in court again and again.
A panel of three federal judges said today that President Trump’s order to exclude people in the country illegally when redrawing congressional districts violates the lawhttps://t.co/5f34Y4FtlB
— POLITICO (@politico) September 10, 2020
Trump has also made multiple attempts to change the processes and outcome of the 2020 U.S. Census, attempting to put new questions on the forms requiring a respondent to state whether or not they are a U.S. cities as well as trying to stop the counting, which would leave those most difficult to count – the poor, the homeless, and the undocumented – out of the final numbers. On Thursday, Trump lost yet another battle in federal court, this time over his attempts to keep the undocumented from being counted at all.
According to The Hill:
‘A unanimous three-judge panel for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York said in its decision that Trump’s executive memorandum violates the executive branch’s “constitutional responsibility to count the whole number of persons in each State and to apportion members of the House of Representatives among the States according to their respective numbers.”
‘”The merits of the parties’ dispute are not particularly close or complicated,” the panel wrote in its 86-page unsigned opinion.’
Court blocks Trump’s order to exclude undocumented immigrants from Census count https://t.co/OX5Ze4FdR7
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) September 10, 2020
The panel of judges determined that their decision was an easy one, as Trump is clearly trying to subvert established laws. The decision was unanimous and Trump’s wishes to once again treat undocumented immigrants as less than human were thwarted.
‘”The President is not free to substitute his own view of what is most ‘consonant with the principles of representative democracy’ for the view that Congress already chose,” the panel added, quoting the president’s memo.
‘The panel consisted of two judges appointed by Republican presidents and one by a Democrat.’
A three-judge panel BLOCKS the Trump admin’s attempt to exclude undocumented immigrants from census apportionment.
“[T]he Presidential memorandum is DECLARED unlawful,” the judges wrote.
Background, @CourthouseNews https://t.co/W7U2CnPLrU pic.twitter.com/aWOWTRpjLO
— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) September 10, 2020
It is unlikely that the court case will stop with the judges in New York; Trump will most likely pursue his case in higher courts in an attempt to get his way. Just in case, the judges who ruled on the case on Thursday left the door open in case the next court finds differently than they did.
‘The ruling prohibits the Department of Commerce from reporting any information regarding undocumented immigrants in its census count that could be used to implement the president’s directive.
‘But the judges said the agency should continue to study whether it would be feasible to calculate the number of undocumented immigrants in each state, in case the ruling is overturned on appeal.
‘The decision is another major court defeat for the White House, which has repeatedly attempted to weight the census with citizenship data.’
A court has blocked President Trump’s attempt to omit unauthorized immigrants from the census numbers used to determine House seats. https://t.co/Yv3o4EV2vT
— NPR (@NPR) September 10, 2020
