Attorney General Bonta Calls on Trump Administration to Withdraw Citizenship Question from Test Survey for 2030 Census

Multistate coalition also criticizes other planned changes by Trump Administration 

OAKLAND — California Attorney General Rob Bonta today joined a coalition of 21 attorneys general in submitting a comment letter to the U.S. Department of Commerce opposing the U.S. Census Bureau’s recently announced changes to the 2026 Operational Test. Operational tests are not new; they are a standard part of preparing for the next decennial count — here, the 2030 Census — and allow new methods, technologies, and procedures to be evaluated. However, the Trump Administration is pursuing changes that threaten the integrity and accuracy of this process. Specifically, the Census Bureau is proposing to use a longer-than-normal questionnaire that includes a citizenship question; to conduct the 2026 Operational Test between April and September in just two sites, rather than the six sites previously identified; and to have United States Postal Service (USPS) workers conduct in-person interviews for the Operational Test, rather than Census Bureau workers. In the letter, the attorneys general highlight the deficiencies of the Census Bureau’s current plans and urge the Trump Administration to reverse course.

“President Trump has repeatedly attempted to politicize the census. During his first term in office, he tried adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, but my office sued and the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately blocked that unlawful effort. Last year, he posted on social media that he did not want all individuals, regardless of immigration status, to be counted in the 2030 Census — even though the U.S. Constitution clearly requires it. And now, his Census Bureau wants to move forward with a test survey that not only includes a citizenship question and other problematic changes, but that also undermines proper preparation for the 2030 Census,” said Attorney General Bonta. “We have fought tooth and nail to ensure that California receives both the congressional representation and federal funding we are entitled to. With today’s comment letter, my fellow attorneys general and I are continuing to stand up for the rule of law and calling out the Trump Administration for jeopardizing a fair and accurate 2030 Census. The proposed changes are illegal and must be withdrawn.”

In the comment letter, Attorney General Bonta and the coalition raise concerns about the Census Bureau’s plans, including that:

• The Notice announcing the proposed changes — entitled “Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment Request; 2026 Operational Test in Support of the 2030 Census” — does not comply with procedural requirements under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). In presenting the changes as a notice, rather than as a proposed rule, the Census Bureau improperly bypasses the fulsome notice and comment procedures required by the APA. This circumvention of the APA is not proper.
• The Notice states that the Census Bureau proposes to use the American Community Survey (ACS) Methods Panel, which includes the ACS questionnaire, for the 2026 Operational Test. The ACS questionnaire, however, is a poor substitute for the decennial Census questionnaire. The questions asked by the ACS are meaningfully different and require significantly more time to answer than those in the recent census forms. While, as the Census Bureau has reported, “the main function of the U.S. decennial census is to provide counts of people for the purpose of congressional apportionment, the primary purpose of the [ACS] is to measure the changing social and economic characteristics of the U.S. population — our education, housing, jobs, and more.”
• Moreover, the use of the ACS questionnaire includes a citizenship question. Numerous tests and studies, including those conducted by the Census Bureau itself, demonstrate that the inclusion of a citizenship question is likely to reduce response rates, particularly for non-citizen, Hispanic, and Asian communities.
• The Notice also states that “the Test will evaluate and assess the use of [USPS] staff to increase efficiency in various capacities typically performed by temporary Census Bureau field workers.” The Notice, however, fails to explain the source and nature of these efficiencies, and is silent as to some of the problems that the plan to use USPS staff will cause. For example, Postal workers are not legally required to maintain confidentiality of individual data and are indeed permitted to share such information with a broad range of recipients under many different scenarios. In contrast, Census workers are strictly prohibited from sharing individuals’ data with any entity or person for any reason beyond the statistical objectives of the census.
• The two sites chosen — Spartanburg, South Carolina and Huntsville, Alabama — meet few of the Census Bureau’s stated criteria for test sites. In particular, the remaining two sites are poorly suited to test the Census Bureau’s operational efforts to improve response rates among hard-to-count populations.

In filing the comment letter, Attorney General Bonta joins the attorneys general of Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawai‘i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.