January, 14 2019, 11:00pm EDT
New York Federal Judge Blocks Citizenship Question From the 2020 Census
The Brennan Center says the decision lays out a roadmap for additional victories in similar court challenges.
WASHINGTON
United States District Judge Jesse M. Furman today blocked Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross's plan to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, agreeing with a coalition of states, cities, mayors and immigrant rights groups that Secretary Ross's decision would be illegal.
"Today's ruling is a strong signal to the Trump administration that any attempts to politicize and corrupt the 2020 census will fail," said Thomas Wolf, the counsel with the Brennan Center's Democracy Program who leads the center's census project.
"Hard data and commonsense show that the citizenship question would intimidate vulnerable communities and massively suppress participation in the 2020 Census, with damaging effects that would undermine our democracy for a decade or more," Wolf said.
The Commerce Department, which oversees the Census Bureau, announced in March that it would add the question, triggering lawsuits around the country from advocates for a fair and accurate census. The advocates say a citizenship question would scare away immigrants and others concerned about how government may end up using the information about their citizenship status. President Trump's hostile rhetoric against undocumented immigrants has heightened those concerns.
The census count provides critical population data that helps allocate billions of federal dollars and draw political districts so that Congress and state legislatures are representative of the voting population. The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law is a leader in the efforts to ensure that redistricting produces maps that fully and fairly reflect the nation's diverse populations.
Judge Furman's ruling underscores the need for Congress, which is negotiating funding language that would remove the citizenship question from the census, to act and prevent an undercount.
"Congress can end the controversy over the citizenship question once and for all by exercising its supervisory powers over the census and ordering the question off," Wolf said.
Ruling after a trial last month on two consolidated lawsuits in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan, Judge Furman determined that the Trump administration departed unjustifiably from important federal laws governing how government agencies should make decisions, concluding, among other things, that Secretary Ross "alternately ignored, cherry-picked, or badly misconstrued the evidence in the record before him."
Today's decision ends the Trump administration's months-long campaign to postpone the case and avoid a final ruling. The district court's opinion also sets a strong precedent ahead of trials in other challenges to the citizenship question, laying out a roadmap for additional victories in federal courts in California and Maryland.
The Trump administration will likely appeal today's ruling, setting up further potential showdowns in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court, which have already ruled against the administration on several issues in earlier phases of these cases.
Click here for the Brennan Center's Census 2020 page.
The Brennan Center for Justice is a nonpartisan law and policy institute. We strive to uphold the values of democracy. We stand for equal justice and the rule of law. We work to craft and advance reforms that will make American democracy work, for all.
(646) 292-8310LATEST NEWS
'Huge Win': Judge Bars Trump DOJ From Searching Devices of Washington Post Journalist
One press freedom group called the raid on Hannah Natanson's home last month a "warning shot to journalists and whistleblowers nationwide."
Feb 25, 2026
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the US Justice Department cannot search the devices it seized from Hannah Natanson, a Washington Post journalist whose home was raided by the FBI earlier this year as part of an investigation into a government contractor.
William Porter, magistrate judge of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia's Arlington Division, wrote in his 22-page decision that the Trump administration's "failure to identify and analyze" the Privacy Protection Act (PPA) in its application for a search warrant in the case "has seriously undermined the court’s confidence in the government’s disclosures in this proceeding."
The PPA shields journalists from being forced to turn over work materials to law enforcement. During the raid on Natanson's home, FBI agents reportedly seized a phone, two laptops, a recorder, and other devices.
"Many government lawyers had multiple opportunities to identify the PPA as controlling authority and to include an analysis of it in the warrant application," Porter wrote. "None of them did."
Porter added that he hopes "this search was conducted—as the government contends—to gather evidence of a crime in a single case, not to collect information about confidential sources from a reporter who has published articles critical of the administration."
Runa Sandvik, founder of a startup that works to protect journalists' digital security, called the ruling a "huge win for Hannah Natanson and the Washington Post."
The Post noted in its reporting on the decision that federal prosecutors "acknowledged that only a small portion of the information on the devices seized from Natanson would be relevant to the case against" Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a government contractor who was indicted last month on charges of illegally obtaining and sharing classified materials.
Federal prosecutors "asked Porter to allow a government filter team to search through the devices for relevant information," and the team "would then hand over the responsive information to prosecutors," the Post reported.
Porter rejected that proposal in his ruling, citing "documented reporting on government leak investigations and the government’s well-chronicled efforts to stop them."
"Allowing the government’s filter team to search a reporter’s work product—most of which consists of unrelated information from confidential sources—is the equivalent of leaving the government’s fox in charge of the Washington Post’s henhouse,” Porter wrote. “The concern that a filter team may err by neglect, by malice, or by honest difference of opinion is heightened where its institutional interests are so directly at odds with the press freedom values at stake.”
Press freedom organizations have condemned the Trump administration's raid on Natanson's home and seizure of her work devices as an alarming escalation in a broader assault on journalism.
Earlier this month, the Freedom of the Press Foundation filed a complaint against Gordon Kromberg, the federal prosecutor who signed the search warrant application targeting Natanson.
“Kromberg and the government omitted a federal law that should have prohibited the raid of Hannah Natanson’s home when applying for a search warrant," Seth Stern, chief of advocacy for FPF, said in a statement, referring to the Privacy Protection Act. "That choice now threatens to expose Natanson’s sources and cripple her ability to report, while also sending a warning shot to journalists and whistleblowers nationwide."
“Disciplinary bodies cannot look the other way and ignore misconduct that threatens the First Amendment, particularly from an administration with a long history of misleading judges and everyone else," Stern added. "When prosecutors abuse their power to facilitate efforts to silence reporting and intimidate news sources, disciplinary authorities must hold them accountable and impose real consequences.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Watched by Millions, 'People's State of the Union' Counters Unhinged Trump
"We live in a country where we have one reality for everyday people and another for the rich and the well-connected and the well-protected," said Rep. Summer Lee.
Feb 25, 2026
As President Donald Trump prepared to deliver his State of the Union address on Tuesday to applause from sycophantic Republicans, dozens of Democratic lawmakers, progressive advocates, and people impacted by White House policies gathered on the National Mall to present an alternative assessment of the country's trajectory.
"We live in a country where we have one reality for everyday people and another for the rich and the well-connected and the well-protected," said Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.), preempting Trump's claim of a "golden age of America" despite rising costs, deepening inequality, and staggering corruption.
While many Democratic lawmakers opted to attend Trump's speech, saying they did not want the president to deliver his remarks to a House of Representatives full of Republicans, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told the crowd gathered blocks from the US Capitol that "these are not normal times, and Democrats have to stop behaving normally."
Watch the full counter-rally, which organizers said millions watched online:
Among those who joined Democratic lawmakers at the People's State of the Union were Epstein survivors and people harmed by the Trump administration's lawless assault on immigrants, assault on the social safety net, and other policies.
Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said during his remarks at Tuesday's rally that "I’m not in the Capitol building tonight because I have a pretty good idea of what's going to happen."
"For an hour or two or three or four, a man who's made $4 billion off of being president is going to lecture you, the American people, about how good you have it," said Casar. "A man who is building himself a golden ballroom is going to tell you that if you're struggling to get by, that's your fault, because he's killing it."
"Everyone but Donald Trump's rich friends knows that it's a disaster," Casar added.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Disgusting': Republicans Applaud as Trump Brags About Taking Food Aid From Millions
"His Big Ugly Bill ripped food away from hungry moms, kids, and seniors to fund tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans," said one House Democrat.
Feb 25, 2026
US President Donald Trump received a standing ovation from Republican lawmakers and administration officials Tuesday night when he bragged during his State of the Union address about taking nutrition assistance from millions, which he euphemistically characterized as lifting people off food stamps.
"In one year, we have lifted 2.4 million Americans—a record—off of food stamps," Trump said during his nearly two-hour speech.
The Republican reconciliation package that Trump signed into law last summer included $187 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) over a 10-year period, the largest cuts to the program in US history.
Trump: "In one year, we have lifted 2.4 million Americans -- a record -- off of food stamps" (In other words, Republicans cut food stamps) pic.twitter.com/19EoNEUmPF
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 25, 2026
The Republican law includes reductions in federal nutrition funding for states—which administer SNAP—as well as expanded work requirements, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated would strip nutrition benefits from "roughly 2.4 million people in an average month" over the next decade.
As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noted in a recent analysis, changes enacted by the Trump-GOP law mean that "for the first time in the 50-year history of the modern SNAP program, the federal government will no longer ensure that the lowest-income people, including children, older adults, veterans, and people with disabilities, in every state have access to the food assistance they need because states that refuse to pay the cost share could see the program end."
Shortly after Trump signed the Republican megabill into law, his administration canceled an annual US Department of Agriculture survey aimed at measuring food insecurity, undercutting efforts to track the impact of the unprecedented SNAP cuts. The USDA's final reports estimated that nearly 48 million people in the US faced food insecurity in 2024—including nearly one in five households with children.
"Trump says he 'lifted' millions off food stamps," Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-Colo.) wrote in response to the president's State of the Union remarks. "But what he really means is his Big Ugly Bill ripped food away from hungry moms, kids, and seniors to fund tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. The lies are blatant and disgusting."
Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.) denounced her Republican colleagues for their celebratory response to Trump's boast.
"They're applauding ripping food out of people’s mouths to fund their tax cuts for billionaires," McBride wrote on social media.
USDA data released ahead of Trump's speech shows that around 696,000 fewer people received SNAP benefits in November 2025 compared to the previous month.
Katie Bergh, a senior policy analyst on the food assistance team at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, noted that "people haven’t been dropping off SNAP because they no longer need help."
"Economic conditions haven’t improved and groceries haven’t gotten more affordable," Bergh added. "They're losing basic food assistance because of policy choices. Allowing this trend to continue is also a policy choice."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular