Trump Backs Down Again on Citizenship Question

President Donald Trump has abandoned attempts to add a citizenship question to the 2020 US Census, and instead issued an executive order demanding federal agencies hand over records on the number of citizens, non-citizens and undocumented immigrants living in the US.

The controversy was based on whether Trump's administration could ask all recipients a citizenship question on the 2020 census, with critics, including non-profit trade body the Insights Association, arguing that adding the question, without appropriate testing, would deter responses from immigrants, both legal and illegal, and could result in minorities being undercounted.

Last month, the US Supreme Court blocked Trump's plans, calling the government's justification for the question's inclusion 'contrived' - and in response Trump asked lawyers whether it would be possible to delay the Census. Then the Trump administration said it had ditched its bid to add the question to the Census, but within a day, Trump had tweeted that this was 'fake news'.

In a statement, Trump said: 'We are not backing down on our effort to determine the citizenship status of the United States population. We will leave no stone unturned. As a result of today's executive order we will be able to ensure the 2020 census generates an accurate count of how many citizens, non-citizens and illegal aliens are in the United States of America'.