President Donald Trump's government on Tuesday gave up a controversial attempt to put a question about citizenship on next year's census, handing a victory to those who argued the new item would lead to discrimination against minority residents.
The decision followed a Supreme Court ruling that the case for adding the citizenship question was not convincing.
Trump's initial reaction to the ruling had been to call for a delay in the imminent printing of the 2020 census forms, holding up the census in order to allow time for a new appeal.
That bid has now been dropped, ending any chance of changing the format of the massive, once-every-decade survey.
"We're glad the #2020Census will begin printing without a citizenship question," said New York State Attorney General Letitia James, who led a group of states challenging the administration on the issue.
Just this Monday, Trump had been defiant, telling reporters he wanted the census to find out who was a citizen "as opposed to an illegal."
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