AFP, July 3, 2019

President Donald Trump said Tuesday it was a “very sad time” after the US government gave up a controversial attempt to put a question about citizenship on next year’s census.

The decision, announced earlier in the day, handed a victory to those who argued the new item would lead to discrimination against minority residents.

It followed a Supreme Court ruling that the case for adding the citizenship question was not convincing.

The president wrote on Twitter: “A very sad time for America when the Supreme Court of the United States won’t allow a question of ‘Is this person a Citizen of the United States?’ to be asked on the #2020 Census!”

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Trump’s initial reaction to the ruling had been to call for a delay in the imminent printing of the 2020 census forms, holding up the census in order to allow time for a new appeal.

That bid has now been dropped, ending any chance of changing the format of the massive, once-every-decade survey.

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[Editor’s Note: On Twitter, Trump claims the following: “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.”]