How Trump Officials Cut The 2020 Census Short Amid The Pandemic

Sep 21, 20200

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U.S. Census Director Steven Dillingham departs a Sept. 17 news conference in Phoenix. The Trump administration is facing two federal lawsuits over its last-minute decision to cut the 2020 census schedule short. Ross D. Franklin/AP

President Trump said it was a "situation that has to be."

A month after he declared the coronavirus pandemic a national emergency, Trump explained from behind the podium of the White House press briefing room on April 13 that the 2020 census had to be given more time.

The public health crisis had overshadowed the once-a-decade head count of every person living in the U.S. After the census officially kicked off in January in a remote fishing village in Alaska, its nationwide rollout on March 12 - the day after the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic - was upended as growing outbreaks and stay-at-home orders made promoting the census in person and preparing to deploy door knockers and other workers to neighborhoods around the country virtually impossible.

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/18/911960963/how-trump-officials-cut-the-2020-census-short-amid-the-pandemic