Levees. Were just completely stranded here. And trumps socalled social media summit. Im actually a good speller, but everything said the fingers arent adds good as the brain. The rogues gallery of farright trolls invited to the white house. Some of you are extraordinary the. The crap you think of is unbelievable. When all in starts right now. I call twitter a typewriter. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. Today donald trump waved the white flag, acknowledging in so many words that he could not override a Supreme Court ruling barring his administration from adding a Citizenship Question to the census under a bogus pretext. Its deeply regrettable, but it will not stop us from collecting the needed information. And i think even in greater detail and more accurately. In admitting defeat, trump order Government Agencies to share existing data that would allow the administration to effectively build a citizenship database, and that could have serious ramifications that well discuss shortly. But he lost on one of the most controversial question theres is. The census, done every ten years, ordered by the constitution, sets the groundwork for nearly everything the government does. Its used to determine how many seats each state has in the house, how the nation allocates billions upon billions of dollars in federal revenue, not to mention Electoral College votes, and the makeup of state legislatures, decisions about where to build infrastructure, a host of other questions. To do that, the government needs an accurate head count of every person in the United States. Adding a Citizenship Question to the census would undermine that goal, because it would discourage undocumented immigrants and their families, among others from participating. That would have hurt states and districts that are more diverse and tend to be the most often represented by democrats. Of course the Trump Administration didnt admit that was the point. They argued absurdly what they wanted to do to add the question was in an effort to better enforce parts of the Voting Rights act, which the Trump Administration has been hostile to from the start. In march, commerce secretary wilbur ross went before congress, and he just flatout lied in an effort to push that bogus story, but ross lies were eventually exposed, and court after court ruled against the administration until the Citizenship Question ended up for the Supreme Court. And thats when something even wilder happened. The estranged daughter of a deceased republican operative discovered files on his hard drive that completely undermined the administrations position. The hard drive showed the operative help come up with a pretext for adding that Citizenship Question and that he believed that drawing political maps that exclude noncitizens would, quote, would be advantage to republicans and nonhispanic whites. In other words, we can tip the scales to white people and republicans. Now that may have been the Tipping Point in a 54 decision, chief Justice John Roberts sided with the courts liberal ring, ruling the administration could not add the question based on those bogus pretexts. The administration then began printing census forms, even as trump raged and hemmed and hawed and tried to find some other way around the Supreme Court. But today, usually, he didnt. But heres the thing. Trump may have lost in the substance, but his antiimmigrant rhetoric will continue to have a chilling effect. That has been the aspect of trumpism from day one. He has worked to scapegoat and vilify immigrants and frankly scare the hell out of them. Were learning on sunday the administration plans or says it plans to conduct Mass Immigration raids on at least 2,000 families across the United States. You might think the administration would want to keep such raids quiet to maintain an element of surprise, but the raids themselves are entirely the point. The point is to make people feel scared and alienated, and like strangers in the place they live, and to make the people who hate immigrants and love donald trump feel good. Joining me now, tom saenz, president and general counsel of the mexican Legal Defense and Education Fund which sued the Trump Administration over the Citizenship Question. It was one of two suits, this one based in maryland. Thomas, your reaction to the president s decision today. Well, its a little late. He is ten days behind his lawyers who told us at the beginning of the month that they would move forward with census 2020 without a Citizenship Question. But its certainly a victory. A victory if it sticks. We want to make sure that this is a final decision that cannot be reversed at any point in the future. But if it is a final decision and we can get a quarter that prevents it from being reversed, its a great victory. What is the if . I hear some hesitancy in your voice. Well, as you know, weve gone through ten days of a purported reversal. We want to make sure this is a decision that wont be revisited prior to the census next year, and wee get it put in a court order that will prevent them from reversing this decision at any point. Its been interesting to me there has been this pretext all along that was cooked up, and we all know that, that the Jeff Sessions department of justice was so intent on enforcing the Voting Rights act they had to ask this question. That was preposterous. It was cooked up by wilbur ross and Steve Bennett and all those folks. The president today came right out and said why he wants this information. I want to play for you and get your reaction to hearing him be explicit about what theyre after. Take a listen. Not the one you needed for congress. You need it for congress, for districting. You need it for appropriations. Where are the funds going . How many people are there . Are they citizen . Are they not citizens . You need it for many reasons. Sorry, that was from friday. But he is being very clear here that they want worry and representation and everything around citizens. Thats right. They want to change the rules. Weve known from at least the 14th amendment that every person is to be counted and included in apportions house of representatives seats among the states. They appear to want to revisit that, and we have throughout our history counted the total population, recognizing that everyone is a constituent in drawing the districts that are represented by congress member, state legislators and others all around the country. So, yes, theyve been more and more explicit about seeking to change the rules, just as they know the existing rules will play out against them. What do you mean by that . Well, donald trump knows that he has alienated the Latino Community. He further knows that the Latino Community is growing quickly in important states across the country, and anything he can do to diminish the count and the influence of the Latino Community, he seems to concluded would benefit him politically personally, and also those who follow him. But its bigger than donald trump, isnt it . Hofeller, the individual who died, he is a member of the gop establishment in good standing. He cooked up the maps by courts in north carolina. Do you see this as part of a broader project . Yes. I think its quite clear there are folks on the right who for many, many years, indeed they pursued court cases all the way to the Supreme Court have been interested in changing the rules about drawing districts because they recognize that the demographics are not in their favor, particularly because the Republican Party regrettably has alienated the Latino Community largely because of a near unanimous antiimmigrant nativist streak in their policy make, and that is dangerous over the longterm. Im in california, and this happened in california a quarter century ago when pete wilsons championing of an antiimmigrant proposition on the ballot gained him reelection but really catalyzed a change in the politics of this state so it went from being a purple state to a very solidly blue state, largely because the Republican Party in california had alienated those groups that were growing in size, latinos, asian americans, and those who support them. Final question. This was remarkable litigation in a lot of ways, both the suit in maryland and new york. What is your big lesson from the fact that in some ways the levee held here . I was a little scared we were going to get our Andrew Jackson moment, frankly. Some kind of outright disobeying of the Supreme Court order. Whats your opinion on whlessond here . Its a lesson about the strengths of the courts which is a reason we should be further concerned about unqualified folks with evident biases being appointed by donald trump to Lifetime Appointments on the federal courts. The federal courts really are our last bulwark of defending the constitution against very real threats like the one you described. So in this case, the courts played their role, and thats something we should all be proud of, but also be vigilant about maintaining. All right. Thomas saez, thank you for making time. Im joined by a member of the house judiciary subcommittee. Your reaction to what looks like the close of this chapter today, although i suppose the president kept the door open. Well, i mean, i think, chris, it was supposed to be a giant cream puff for all of those trump supporter, but it was completely empty, because in the end he couldnt deliver what he was promising which is to try to exclude as many brown and black folks across the country so he could critically affect reapportionment, affect how much money goes to different places. This i think was a big defeat for him. The problem that i have, and i just reiterate what tom said so articulately is that he is still going to terrorize immigrant community, and he might be able to achieve a similar impact of terrifying immigrant communities so much that they dont come out. So thats what weve got to work against now. That is exactly what i was going to ask you about. In the status hearing in thomas case in maryland, the plaintiffs there who are suing the government were asking the judge can you please tell them to not keep saying this because the rhetoric might have the effect of scaring people about what the census is about. If the president is out there every day, lets say the Citizenship Question is not on it, which its not going to be. Right. But the president is saying were coming to your door to find out if youre a citizen, that can have precisely the effect the question would have. What do you do about that . Not only that, but how about these raids that he is going to institute starting as early as sunday and over the next several months. This is all about terrorizing communities, cruelty to immigrants. This administration, and i said this in a Committee Hearing today, it trades in two things. Number one, cruelty towards immigrants, and number two, money that goes to for profit corporations that are minting money off of that cruelty, off of caging children. So this is just he doesnt have the census, let me just be clear. The census question was the Citizenship Question on the census was a huge victory for us. I dont want to diminish that in any way. However, this president is still continuing to move towards the same goals hes always had which is terrorize, scare, keep all of these people in the shadows. Let me ask you about the raids that have been announced by i. C. E. Some of them are democrats that look, these are families that have deportation orders. What they have said is the universe of people were going to be going for are folks that have deportation orders. They have had process. They have gone through the immigration process. They have been ordered deported. What would you have the government do . Isnt this just enforcing the law, and shouldnt we enforce our immigration laws . So this is the thing. If you remember back to when obama instituted prosecutorial discretion because advocates across the country, including me at the time as an advocate on the outside pushed for the Obama Administration to understand that our immigration laws are so broken that there are a lot of people who have final orders of deportation that have committed no crime other than illegal presence in the United States or illegal reentry in many cases. So what the Obama Administration did is were going to use prosecutorial discretion. Were only going to go after those with the most serious crimes because we recognize that congress has not done its job in passing comprehensive immigration reform. So we have these two signs at the border, as i heard somebody say the other day, the help wanted and then the no trespassing signs. So we have this completely broken system that is hypocritical in nature because we need that labor. We need these folks in the country, but we are not willing to change the system. So just because you have a final order of deportation does not mean that you have done anything other than have illegal presence in this country or illegal reentry into this country. So to say that these are people who have gone through the process is ridiculous because the process is completely broken. And the amount of money that it will take to deport all of these people, that is taxpayer dollars, and let me tell you, at the end of the day, if theyre successful in deporting all of these people, then just plan that youre not going to be able to eat any vegetables. Youre not going to be able to operate our economy. This is going to have a missive impact on our economy. Its why the chamber of commerce says this is crazy. We need immigration reform. Congresswoman pramila jayapal, thank you for being with me. Thank you, chris. Joining me gary peters, top democrat in Homeland Committee and Government Affairs committee which handles oversight of the census. I imagine youre happy with the decision not to sort of try the get around the court order, but you have concerns about what the president announced today in the attempts the executives are now going to make to get its hands on citizenship data . Well, we have a lot of questions. Im not sure exactly what he intends to do. I think we need to get more information. But youre right. I am pleased that the Citizenship Question wont be on the census. Its absolutely critical that every person in this country is counted. Its outlined in the constitution. The Supreme Court verified and actually called what the Trump Administration was doing a contrived plan to put something on the census form that would actually have political repercussions and not really be focused on what the intent of the census is, which is to count every individual in the country. Youve got substantial federal resources that come to states as a result of the count. Youre talking about the very core aspects of our democracy when it comes to representation. And experts who deal with the census every day, those that have testified before my committee were concerned about the undercount. In fact, the economists at the Census Bureau themselves thought youd probably have several million folks now counted, probably nine Million People or more. And to try to get them counted would cost hundreds of millions of additional taxpayer money to count them. It was a bad decision. And when you consider that the census is a very complex, difficult undertaking, and prior to putting any question on the census, they research those questions for several years. There was no research whatsoever. This just came out of the blue, was put into the census. Experts were cleared it would lead to an undercount. And now the president wants to look for other data. Im not sure what he is going to do. But that raise as whole host of issues related to privacy, security of that data, and some of that data was given to agencies for one purpose, and it may be transferred to another purpose, and that is certainly something that the American People didnt bargain for. Let me ask you a question i asked thomas saenz at the time of this. Do you view this as part of a larger political project to essentially reduce the political potency of constituencies, particularly immigrant and immigrant adjacent constituencies that are not favorable to trump or the Republican Party . Yes. I think there is and it was clear. Thats what happened in the court case there was evidence that this was based on politics. It wasnt based on the reasons that they gave to the court. In fact, the Supreme Court in the opinion said that the reasons the Trump Administration gave were contrived. There was another motive behind it. Our founders who wrote the constitution were very clear that every person should be counted. This is a republic, a representative republic. And in order to have a representative republic work the way it should, you have to actually know how many people are residing in that country. Its how we determin