An internal memo from the chief scientist of the U.S. Census Bureau warned Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross against adding a question on citizenship to the 2020 census.
John Abowd, the agency’s chief scientist and associate director for research and methodology, wrote in the January memo that adding a citizenship question would be “very costly, harms the quality of the census count, and would use substantially less accurate citizenship status data than are available from administrative sources.”
The document also states that adding the questions would create “major potential quality and cost disruptions” for the 2020 census.