Show an ad over header. AMP  

Court blocks Trump's move to exclude undocumented immigrants from census

10 September 2020
 Dan Ackermann

A three-judge federal court in New York on Thursday blocked the Trump administration's push to exclude undocumented immigrants from influencing congressional apportionment as determined by the 2020 Census.

Why it matters: Removing unauthorized immigrants from the census this year would cause California, Texas and Florida to lose at least one House seat they otherwise would have been awarded based on respective population increases, the Pew Research Center found this summer.

The big picture: Eight legal challenges emerged in response to Trump's executive memo to alter the census in July, per NPR.

  • There are less than three weeks to go before the U.S. Census ends. The count has been complicated by the coronavirus pandemic thwarting in-person events, door-knocking campaigns and other response strategies, Axios' Kim Hart reports.

What they're saying: “This is a huge victory for voting rights and for immigrants' rights," Dale Ho, director of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, said in a statement. "President Trump has tried and failed yet again to weaponize the census against immigrant communities. The law is clear — every person counts in the census."

  • When signing the memo on the census, Trump claimed in a statement there "used to be a time when you could proudly declare, 'I am a citizen of the United States.' But now, the radical left is trying to erase the existence of this concept and conceal the number of illegal aliens in our country."

What's next: Thursday's ruling is likely to be appealed straight to the Supreme Court, NPR reports.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

Section2

Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.