The U.S. Supreme Court dodged a ruling on Friday on whether President Trump can exclude undocumented immigrants from a key census count.
In the unsigned opinion, the court said it would be premature to rule on the case right now because it is “riddled with contingencies and speculation” and even the Trump administration doesn’t know how many undocumented immigrants there are or where they live.
“At the end of the day, the standing and ripeness inquiries both lead to the conclusion that judicial resolution of this” case is “premature,” the justices wrote.
In their dissent, the three liberal justices said that there is enough of a record in this case to say that the administration’s plan is clearly illegal under federal law. That’s because Census numbers used to determine each state’s share of seats in the House of Representatives and votes in the Electoral College have always included both citizens and noncitizens, regardless of their immigration status.
