Justice Department officials reversed course Friday and told a federal judge they would continue to seek the addition of a question on citizenship to the 2020 census -- but said they didn’t know what rationale they would offer, The New York Times reported. President Trump said earlier on Friday that he was considering issuing an executive order to add the citizenship question.

Earlier in the week administration officials indicated that they would print the census forms without the citizenship question after the Supreme Court blocked their efforts to add it on the grounds that their rationale “seems to have been contrived.” Many social science groups opposed the addition of a question on citizenship, which they argued would discourage immigrants from responding and lead to an undercount of the U.S. population.