U.S. Department of Justice building in Washington, D.C.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced Tuesday that he will “lead a multi-state lawsuit” over the citizenship question added to the 2020 census, a day after California sued the Trump administration over the issue. 

“A fair and accurate count of all people in America is one of the federal government's most solemn constitutional obligations,” Schneiderman said. “The Trump Administration's reckless decision to suddenly abandon nearly 70 years of practice by demanding to know the citizenship status of each resident counted cuts to the heart of this sacred obligation—and will create an environment of fear and distrust in immigrant communities that would make impossible both an accurate Census and the fair distribution of federal tax dollars.”

Schneiderman and more than a dozen other attorneys general wrote to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in February to oppose the inclusion of the question.

The California lawsuit, filed by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, alleges that the inclusion of a question about citizenship on the census violates the Constitution. The suit claims asking about citizenship will “repress responses” from citizens and noncitizens, impeding the Census Bureau from carrying out its constitutional mandate requiring all persons in each state be counted every 10 years.

The lawsuit alleges California will lose billions of dollars in federal funding, as well as the state's “fair share” of congressional seats and Electoral College electors, if the number of people in California is undercounted. In addition to a constitutional violation, the lawsuit alleges the decision to add the question was “arbitrary and capricious” under the Administrative Procedures Act.

“Since the first day of his presidential campaign and through his first year in office, President Trump has targeted immigrants: vilifying them and attempting to exclude them from the country,” Becerra wrote in an op-ed Monday, along with California Secretary of State Alex Padilla. “Immigrants and their loved ones understandably are, and will be, concerned about how data collected in the 2020 Census will be used.”

The defendants in the case include Ross, the Census Bureau and acting Director Ron Jarmin.

 DOJ requested the inclusion of the question late last year. A DOJ spokeswoman said in an email that the department “looks forward to defending the reinstatement of the citizenship question, which will allow the Department to protect the right to vote and ensure free and fair elections for all Americans.”

A Commerce Department spokesman said the agency will not comment on the specifics of pending litigation, but that the case is “without merit.”

The lawsuit requests a declaratory judgment that including the citizenship question violates the Constitution, as well as a preliminary injunction blocking the government from including the question or taking any “irreversible steps” to do so.

A citizenship question has not appeared on the census since 1950. The Commerce Department echoed DOJ's claims that including the question will permit more effective enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, and said that Ross “determined that obtaining complete and accurate information to meet this legitimate government purpose outweighed the limited potential adverse impacts.”