Donald Trump Says He May Issue An Executive Order For Census Citizenship Question

Donald Trump told reporters that he may opt to issue an executive order to make sure that a question about citizenship appears on the 2020 census. According to NBC, despite a ruling from the Supreme Court that stipulated the White House couldn’t include the question at this time, the president is apparently considering other options to ensure that one gets included.

Trump told reporters that he is exploring several options to get the question on the upcoming census, including an executive order.

“We’re thinking about doing that, we have four or fives ways we can do it, it’s one of the ways we’re thinking about doing it very seriously,” Trump said. “We can start the printing (of the census forms) now and maybe do an addendum after we get a positive decision, so we’re working on a lot of things, including an executive order.”

It seemed that the issue of a citizenship question had been dropped after the Supreme Court ruling, and members of Trump’s own administration had made comments suggesting that the matter would be pushed to the side for now. However, the Court did leave the door open for the administration to return with a new justification for including the question, though many expected that since the White House had said the census needed to be printed by now, the matter was too difficult to pursue given the short timeframe.

But on Wednesday and Thursday, as The Inquisitr reported, Trump contradicted that message and announced that he would be doing whatever is necessary to be sure that the question appears on the census.

“The News Reports about the Department of Commerce dropping its quest to put the Citizenship Question on the Census is incorrect or, to state it differently, FAKE! We are absolutely moving forward, as we must, because of the importance of the answer to this question,” he wrote.

Trump says he's mulling executive order for census https://t.co/7s6M7OBtvl pic.twitter.com/6pyTxtTKgj

— FOX31 Denver KDVR (@KDVR) July 5, 2019

The Justice and Commerce Department began working after Trump’s tweet on Wednesday to find ways to include the question on the 2020 census despite sounding as if the topic would be dropped.

Apparently, this includes issuing an executive order to make certain the question ends up on the census.

A federal judge in Maryland set a 2 p.m. deadline on Friday for the White House to reveal how it planned to move forward with the question and the Justice Department lawyers have been working to find a legal method for including the question. If the White House intends to move forward through legal channels to push the question of citizenship, it must have a proposal by the Friday deadline.