Why Is The Census Bureau Still Asking A Citizenship Question On Forms?

You won't see a citizenship question on the 2020 census. After a more than year-long legal fight, three federal judges are making sure of that by permanently blocking the Trump administration from using next year's head count to ask about the U.S. citizenship status of every person living in every household in the country.

But the Census Bureau, which conducts more than 100 surveys for the federal government, is continuing to ask about citizenship on other forms, which have sparked plenty of confusion around the country.

Unlike the census, these surveys collect responses from only a sample of households, and their results produce anonymized citizenship data that the government has relied on for years to, for example, protect the voting rights of racial minorities. Controversy over the question the Trump administration failed to add to the 2020 census, however, has drawn extra attention to these other citizenship questions.

Here's a short guide to some of the Census Bureau surveys that currently include a citizenship question.