New Jersey is joining a multi-state lawsuit against the federal government to block the inclusion of a proposed citizenship question in the 2020 census.
New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal says asking people if they’re U.S. citizens will discourage immigrants to participate in the census.
Amol Sinha the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, says that would have negative consequences.
“Because the census is used for so many different things including representation, including school districts, including resources from the state and federal government, those communities are going to suffer.”
Monmouth University Polling Institute director Patrick Murray says the people who have run the census required a lot of testing to make sure that any changes would not undermine the count.
“And it doesn’t look like the Census Bureau and the Justice Department have done that kind of research that’s necessary for understanding what the impact is. So that’s a real departure from past practices.”
Assembly Judiciary Committee chairwoman Annette Quijano worries that including the citizenship question would hurt urban communities for the next decade.