US President Donald Trump’s attempt to exclude undocumented immigrants from the US Census has been blocked by a three-judge panel of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
US Circuit Court Judges Richard Wesley, Peter Hall and Jesse Furman handed down a Thursday ruling which prohibits the US president from making unprecedented alterations to the constitutionally-mandated count of every living person in the country.
A July presidential memorandum called on “executive departments and agencies to share information” with Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and his department, so that the administration could legally “obtain accurate data on the number of citizens, non-citizens, and illegal aliens in the country.”
The proposed move has been met with legal skepticism, including by the panel of circuit court judges, who did not make a legal determination in regard to the constitutionality of Trump’s efforts.
The Thursday ruling followed US District Judge Lucy Koh’s Saturday issuance of a temporary restraining order in a separate legal battle, which blocked Ross and the Trump administration from implementing proposed plans geared toward altering the 2020 census count and “winding down or altering any Census field operations.”
Former heads of the nonpartisan principal agency argued in a joint August memo that an extension of census field operations was “necessary,” as the beginning of the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic delayed the Census Bureau’s intended timeline.
Trump and the White House legal team are expected to appeal the three-judge panel’s decision in the coming days.
Meanwhile, a preliminary injunction hearing on the census timeline case has been scheduled for September 17, the expiration date of the temporary restraining order.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
