A coalition of civil rights groups, including the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), have joined together to sue the Trump administration over the politically motivated addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 Census:

The groups charge that Trump’s order intentionally discriminates against immigrants and thwarts the constitutional mandate to accurately count the U.S. population. Plaintiffs are Casa de Maryland, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, ADC Research Institute, New York Immigration Coalition, and Make the Road New York.

Trump officials ignored the advice of the experts—including a bipartisan group of five former Census directors—to include the question for the first time in 70 years. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross claimed it was needed for “more effective enforcement” of the Voting Rights Act, but as the lawsuit states, its true intent is clear:

… The citizenship question is specifically designed to harm immigrants and instill fear among their members … Lower response rates will be catastrophic for communities and states with large immigrant populations. As a result of an undercounting of their residents, states may lose seats in Congress and crucial federal funding that is tied to census results.

“The inclusion of a citizenship question on the 2020 census will have a discriminatory impact on minority communities, especially Arab-Americans, across the country, said Samer Khalaf, ADC president. “The addition of this question to the census,” added Casa’s Gustavo Torres, “is clearly a systematic and racist attempt on behalf of the Trump administration to literally have immigrants erased from the records, to have their contributions ignored and discounted.”