A conservative activist and columnist says a federal judge's recent decision in a court challenge to President Donald Trump's census question regarding citizenship borders on mind-reading – not the law.
Last week, Judge Jesse M. Furman ruled that asking about citizenship on the 2020 census is legal – but also ruled the Trump administration may still have broken the law in how it went about adding that question to the new census form. Furman decided the suit brought by a coalition of Democratic attorneys general can move forward, and that the plaintiffs can try to prove that the president's team acted with "animus" toward racial or ethnic minorities in making the decision.
Robert Knight, a columnist for The Washington Times and OneNewsNow, says it's apparent this judge believes a person's motive for doing something is more important than the act itself.
"This sounds exactly like the U.S. district judges who struck down President Trump's travel ban on several terror-prone nations," he shares. "Not that he didn't have the authority to do it, but they didn't like his attitude and [his] reasons for doing so.
"That isn't their place [to decide that]," Knight argues. "We're getting into mind-reading, not law."
The columnist contends there's nothing wrong with asking about citizenship on the U.S. census, adding that "it seems like a perfectly appropriate place to do it."
"And [yet] there is panic among progressives," he notes. "And you have to ask why they're so concerned that it might reveal how many non-citizens there are in the United States. In fact, a Washington Post editorial says it sounds like – quote – 'an underhanded way to depress Democratic representation in Washington.'
"Are they admitting that the Democrats are depending on non-citizens to vote for them?" he wonders.
Knight adds that if that's the case, the progressives/Democrats are being "entirely hypocritical" in their continued push behind the narrative that Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election and Trump colluded with the Russians to steal the election from Hillary Clinton.
"If the Democrats are so concerned about foreign intervention in America, why are they trying to get non-citizens to vote?" he asks.
Knight is encouraged that Congressman Jeff Duncan (R-South Carolina) has introduced legislation that would strip federal funding from states or localities that allow non-citizens to vote in their elections.