The Trump administration's explanation for why it wants to put a citizenship question on the U.S. census was "contrived," Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote in late June, voting with the four liberals on the Supreme Court. That is a polite way of saying that the stated rationale - that the question would help the government enforce the Voting Rights Act - was a lie.
After that decision, government lawyers at first told both the opposing counsel and the courts that the Census Bureau was ready to give up, ending the effort to add the controversial question.