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Judges Skeptical of Trump Bid to Toss Census Exclusion Challenge

Judges Skeptical of Trump Bid to Toss Census Exclusion Challenge

A panel of federal judges expressed skepticism of the Trump administration’s request that it dismiss a suit accusing the president of illegally ordering census officials to exclude undocumented immigrants from the decennial count.

In a telephone hearing Thursday in federal court in Manhattan, a three-judge panel -- required in cases relating to Congressional apportionment -- peppered Justice Department lawyer Sopan Joshi with pointed questions and appeared doubtful of his argument that the court lacks jurisdiction over the July lawsuit filed by several states and advocacy groups and that the harms they claimed were speculative.

The hearing ended without a decision though, and the judges didn’t say when they would rule.

The lawsuit is seeking an order blocking President Donald Trump’s directive, arguing that the constitution requires the counting of all residents, including undocumented immigrants.

Lawyers for New York and the American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday Trump is illegally trying to manipulate the count and possibly deprive Democratic-leaning areas with higher immigrant populations of Congressional seats and federal resources, allocation of which are based on the census.

The U.S. Supreme Court last year blocked the administration from adding a citizenship question to the census questionnaire.

The case is State of New York et al v. Trump, 20-cv-05770, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

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