At least a dozen states have announced plans to sue the Trump administration to prevent it from asking about citizenship status on the 2020 census. The Commerce Department said late Monday that at the request of the Justice Department, the next decennial census will ask respondents about citizenship for the first time since 1950. Critics, including experts in the Census Bureau, are concerned that including a citizenship question will lead to a severe undercount of the U.S. population, especially in areas with lots of non-citizen immigrants, and skew the drawing of state and federal voting districts in ways that unfairly advantage Republicans. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is leading one multistate lawsuit, and California filed a separate legal challenge Monday night.

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