SCOTUS Tosses Challenge to Trump Plan for Excluding Undocumented Immigrants from Census Count

In what CNN and NBC have referred to as a “partial” win for President Donald Trump, the Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a challenge to the administration’s plan to exclude from the census individuals who are in the country illegally.

“This breaks with a couple centuries of practice here,” CNN’s Jim Sciutto said dramatically, introducing the news that the court, by a vote of 6 to 3 along ideological lines, was rejecting this particular challenge without weighing in on the merits of the plan.

“Consistent with our determination that standing has not been shown and that the case is not ripe, we express no view on the merits of the constitutional and related statutory claims presented. We hold only that they are not suitable for adjudication at this time,” reads the actual, unsigned opinion.

Law&Crime writes:

The high court’s majority declined to weigh in on the merits on Friday, but handed President Trump a procedural win by vacating the judgment of a three-judge district court and kicking the case back down to that lower court “with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.”

More.

The administration did just that, and the Supreme Court’s conservative majority threw out the lower court ruling on Friday on procedural grounds—while at the same time acknowledging that the case may at some time in the future be “suitable for adjudication.”

“At the end of the day, the standing and ripeness inquiries both lead to the conclusion that judicial resolution of this dispute is premature,” the unsigned per curiam opinion said. “Consistent with our determination that standing has not been shown and that the case is not ripe, we express no view on the merits of the constitutional and related statutory claims presented. We hold only that they are not suitable for adjudication at this time.”

The liberal justices, in their dissent, were not at all happy.

The make-up of the House of Representatives is determined by the census, with the number of representatives from each state determined by the population.