Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum and New Yorks Eric Schneiderman are suing the Trump administration
Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum and New York's Eric Schneiderman are suing the Trump administration Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum has signed on to a lawsuit against the federal government over its decision to add a question about a person's citizenship to the US census in 2020. New York and California were the first to sue the feds over this issue on March 26, but 18 other states have since signed on to the complaint.

β€œAdding a citizenship question to the Census form has a deliberate and intended chilling effect on participation,” said Attorney General Rosenblum in a press release. β€œAs state Attorneys General we are committed to making sure every voice is heard, and we believe that every person in America counts. Period.”

The suit alleges that the Census question "violates the constitutional mandate to conduct an 'actual Enumeration,'" meaning the federal government is required to count all residents, not just citizens. The Census question in dispute will likely skew those numbers, the AGs argue, since undocumented immigrants may refuse to mark their citizenship status, (understandably) fearing deportation. According to the complaint, actual enumeration, "requires that the Census Bureau avoid unnecessarily deterring participation in the decennial census." Tacking on this citizenship question seems to fall directly into that category.

If this question is left in the 2020 census, areas with large immigrant populations are more likely to be undercounted and lose key federal funding. Immigrants account for 9.6 percent of Oregon's population, the suit claims, and in 2014, around 32 percent of immigrants in Oregon were undocumented. And with only 80 percent of Oregonian households mailing back their census questionnaire in 2010, we already have a low rate of participation.

Census numbers also drive federal funding of numerous programs, so an undercount could severely limit public services in certain states. According to the complaint, "Several Plaintiff States will lose millions of dollars in reimbursement as a result of even a 1% undercount."

Sections of the complaint outline the federal grants received by the states based on census data, including a total of $527 million to Oregon between 2015 and 2017 for highways, child care development, and urbanized area formula grants. As for Medicaid, "Oregon received $3.64 billion in reimbursement under the Medicaid program, and an additional 1% undercount on the 2010 Census would have resulted in losses of over $44 million in federal funding."

The complaint will be heard in the United States District Court Southern District of New York.