“Are you a U.S. citizen?”
Only in self-defeating, sovereignty-eroding America is the idea of asking whether people living in America are American citizens for the American census a matter of controversy.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on whether the Trump administration can include a citizenship question on the high-stakes 2020 census questionnaire. Thank goodness, the conservative majority indicated support for allowing it.
There’s already such a question on the annual American Community Survey administered by the Census Bureau. It was asked in long-form questionnaires sent to a sample of households in 2000. And it was regularly asked in historical census forms from 1820-1950.
But we live in a Trump-deranged age, so now it’s tantamount to an international human rights crime to ask anyone about citizenship status at any time for any reason. Heaven forbid we inconvenience or discomfit legal noncitizens or illegal immigrants with a question.