The decision was a victory for critics who said the question was part of an administration effort to skew the census results in favor of Republicans.

It was also a remarkable retreat for an administration that typically digs into such fights.

Just last week after the Supreme Court’s decision, President Trump said he was asking his lawyers to delay the census, “no matter how long,” in order to fight for the question in court.

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It was unclear what prompted the administration to walk away from its effort.

Word of the action came in a one-sentence email from the Justice Department to lawyers for plaintiffs in a New York lawsuit that sought to block the question’s inclusion in the head count.

The email offered no explanation, but the administration faced weeks or months of additional legal challenges to the question even as the Census Bureau had said it had to begin printing questionnaires by July 1 to meet the April 2020 deadline for conducting the census.

The Supreme Court last week rejected the administration’s stated reason for adding a question on citizenship to the census, and while the decision was not a conclusive ruling, the justices placed a daunting hurdle before the government.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement Tuesday evening that he respected the Supreme Court, but strongly disagreed with its ruling.

“The Census Bureau has started the process of printing the decennial questionnaires without the question,” he said. “My focus, and that of the Bureau and the entire Department is to conduct a complete and accurate census.”

Dale Ho, director of the Voting Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, which was among the plaintiffs trying to block the question, said, “Everyone in America counts in the census, and today’s decision means we all will.”