But the Trump administration and their Republican water-carriers have turned it into a partisan political football by insisting on including a question about citizenship on the census forms. The result, demographers widely agree, will be a vast undercount of the American population -- to the political benefit of the GOP. Jill FilipovicCritics opposing the inclusion of a question about citizenship say that it will frighten noncitizens and vulnerable immigrant communities into underreporting. Undercounting immigrants will result in all of those resources being stretched thinner in more racially diverse (and especially more heavily Latino) areas. California is already suing over it, with the state's attorney general and secretary of state harshly criticizing the move to add the citizenship question as anti-immigrant.

Source: CNN March 27, 2018 20:26 UTC