According to an investigation from the Office of Inspector General, during congressional testimony three years ago, former U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross gave a misleading reason for why he wanted a citizenship question on the 2020 census.
Witnesses told the House Small Business Subcommittee on Contracting and Infrastructure of challenges they faced, as well as opportunities for improvement.
His reversal comes after the Supreme Court blocked his efforts to include the citizenship question and as the government had already begun the lengthy and expensive process of printing the census questionnaire without it.
The change announced Sunday comes days after the department vowed to continue to try to find a legal path forward to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census.
The administration has faced numerous roadblocks to adding the citizenship question, including last week's Supreme Court ruling that blocked its inclusion, at least temporarily.
The high court did not say the question could not be asked, just that the administration's current justification for adding the question was insufficient.
On the court's final day of decisions before a summer break, the justices dealt blows to efforts to combat the drawing of electoral districts for partisan gain and put a hold on a Trump administration effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.
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