NEW: We recently obtained new records that further demonstrate the influence of far-right groups at the Trump administration’s Commerce Department and Census Bureau.
americanoversight.org/documents-show…
americanoversight.org/documents-show…
The documents include an email to former Sec. Wilbur Ross from the leader of an anti-immigration group lamenting “the shift of political power” brought by immigration.
The documents also indicate another right-wing group’s apparently successful efforts to place an appointee at Commerce.
The records contain a Dec. 2019 email from the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, an extreme anti-immigration group, to Ross about a CIS report.
“Our big concern,” Mark Krikorian wrote, “is that the [Trump] administration’s as-yet-unreleased immigration plan will set in stone the current legal immigration level of 1 million-plus each year, and thus continue this shift of political power toward blue states.”
As secretary, Ross had been a key figure in the administration’s attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, which was ultimately blocked by the Supreme Court in June 2019.
In July 2020, Trump issued a memo instructing Ross to report with the census results information that would allow Trump to exclude undocumented immigrants from the count used to determine congressional seats. An early executive order from President Biden reversed that policy.
The records also include emails from someone who appears to have been working with or on behalf of the Federalist Society — the conservative organization that exercised significant power over Trump’s judicial nominations — to help find mid-level hires for Commerce.
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