Trump’s days as president are coming to an end, but his efforts to weaponize the census continue — and could impact our democracy for the next decade. We’re going to the Supreme Court on Nov. 30 to make sure that doesn’t happen. 

If the census fight feels like a case of déjà vu, there’s a good reason. We already took the Trump administration to court to block its attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The Supreme Court agreed with us and ruled that the citizenship question was illegal. Because of that victory, the census proceeded this year as it has for the last 70 years, free of the discriminatory citizenship question. 

Still, the fight continues. In spite of squarely losing on the citizenship question, the Trump administration tried again in July to weaponize the census. This time, it issued a memo directing the secretary of commerce to exclude undocumented immigrants from the count that determines how many congressional seats each state gets. This would be an unconstitutional and radical break with the 230-year history of the census, and could reshape the Electoral College map for years to come.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/RpuDBijBG9o

Here’s why excluding undocumented immigrants is a problem for all of us: Members of Congress don’t just represent the people who vote. They represent everyone with a stake in our communities, including over 10 million undocumented people who live in the U.S. That’s why the census has always counted everybody — citizens and noncitizens alike — since it was first conducted in 1790. Everybody counts and everybody is entitled to representation in Congress. The Constitution says so. 

On top of being unconstitutional, the exclusion of undocumented people from the census apportionment count is a discriminatory attack on immigrant communities. It’s no surprise: President Trump has been virulently anti-immigrant since even before he came into office, and the census is just one of many arenas he has used to demonize and disempower immigrants. If he prevails, the exclusionary census total Trump is asking for will dilute the political power of states and areas with significant immigrant communities, especially those of color. States with large immigrant populations like California, Texas, and New Jersey would each lose a congressional seat and an Electoral College vote, while white-majority states would gain representation. An undercount would also make it easier for politicians to draw even more skewed legislative district lines for gerrymandering. To avoid these undemocratic outcomes, we must preserve the integrity of the census — by counting everybody.

From the very beginning of the census fight, Trump has been trying to send the message that undocumented people do not count. That’s not only wrong, it’s unlawful and unconstitutional. Undocumented people are part of the fabric of our communities. They count. 

This case is not about particular individuals or groups, it’s about whether all of our communities are represented. We all have a stake in our communities, and we all lose when we’re not counted accurately. We won’t let Trump get away with this last-ditch effort to weaponize the census. We defeated him in the Supreme Court last year, and we are confident that we will do it again this month. 

We recognize Trans Awareness week by reflecting on how far we have come and how much further we still have to go to achieve true equality and safety for transgender, non-binary, and gender diverse North Dakotans and their families.  

This past year has been historic for the transgender community, with a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that will shape the way courts view discrimination against LGBTQ+ and Two Spirit people for years to come. In June, the Supreme Court issued a ruling on three separate cases, including that of ACLU plaintiff Aimee Stephens who was fired from her job for being transgender, affirming that the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination against LGBTQ+ and Two Spirit people. 

While the decision itself specifically addressed employment, its impact has already been far-reaching. Courts across the country have already applied the Supreme Court’s ruling that LGBTQ+ and Two Spirit people are protected from discrimination in employment to areas such as housing, health care, and education. 

Transgender Awareness Week culminates with Transgender Day of Remembrance on Nov. 20. On that day, we honor the memories and contributions of the transgender people whose lives were lost to anti-transgender violence in that year and in previous years. So far, at least 34 transgender people have been killed in the United States this year.  

Although holding space to honor the lives of those lost to violence is a reminder of the dangers still faced by the transgender community, it is also a day to celebrate the trans people who are still living.  

Transgender Awareness Week is about listening to and trusting transgender people to be the architects of their own liberation. But the fight for a North Dakota that’s safe and equitable for everyone won’t end when this week does. For the past several years, lawmakers have zeroed in on transgender youth and attempted to pass bills that would codify discrimination against them. We expect to see similar bills during the 2021 legislative session. Get ready to help us stop these bills by pledging to stand up for transgender North Dakotans and signing up for our email updates today.  

At the ACLU of North Dakota, we envision a North Dakota where trans and gender-diverse people no longer face barriers in health care, housing, employment and the legal system, and where every person can live their life to the fullest. 

This week and every week, we are committed to making that vision a reality.  

After four years of attacks on our reproductive rights and health by the Trump administration and the anti-abortion legislators it has emboldened around the country, there is much to repair. When President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris take office, their administration must make it a top priority to not just undo the damage, but to take bold, visionary steps to make reproductive health care — including abortion — accessible to all, regardless of their income or ZIP code. Congress, too, has a key role to play in ensuring that everyone is afforded the dignity to make our own decisions about our lives.

Here are just a few of the many items that should top our elected officials’ to-do list:

Reverse dangerous Trump administration regulations targeting reproductive health care, including:

• The refusal of care rule, which aimed to dramatically expand health care institutions’ and workers’ ability to withhold and obstruct access to essential, even life-saving medical care and information — with no regard for patients’ well-being.While it was rightly struck down in court, it is one of many attempts by the Trump administration to invoke religious or personal beliefs to justify discrimination, particularly against LGBTQ people and people seeking reproductive health care. The Biden administration must ensure that religious liberty is never used as a license to discriminate, and that patients’ needs always come first in health care.
• The rule undermining the ACA’s birth control benefit, which allows employers and universities to deny their employees or students insurance coverage for contraception by invoking religious or moral objections. This is yet another example of how the Trump administration has discriminated against those seeking health care under the guise of protecting religious liberty. In July, the Supreme Court allowed this discriminatory rule to take effect, potentially robbing hundreds of thousands of people of their no-cost birth control coverage, and forcing employees and students to instead pay out of pocket. The Biden administration must guarantee that no one is denied birth control coverage because of where they work or where they go to school.
• The rule that has devastated Title X, the 50-year-old family planning program that has provided 4 million patients with low or no incomes with affordable birth control, cancer screenings, STI testing and treatment, and other critical preventive care. The rule prohibits family planning clinics that participate in the program from referring patients for abortion care and imposes other onerous and dangerous requirements. It has resulted in the widespread loss of Title X providers and reduced access to family planning services for those who rely on the program. The Biden administration must restore and rebuild the critical Title X program.

Ensure safe access to medication abortion during the pandemic and beyond.

During the pandemic, the Trump administration went all the way to the Supreme Court to make it as difficult as possible for people to safely access medication abortion care — specifically mifepristone, a prescription medication that has been used to safely end early pregnancies and treat early miscarriages for 20 years. The administration has refused to allow patients to obtain their prescription by mail, insisting that patients travel to a health center solely to pick up a pill, subjecting patients to needless COVID-19 risks. This is despite the Food and Drug Administration having suspended similar requirements for other, far less safe medications during the pandemic. The ACLU won in court, blocking the in-person requirement during the pandemic, but the Supreme Court will soon consider the Trump administration’s request to reinstate it.

This in-person dispensing requirement is part of a longstanding package of outdated, medically unnecessary FDA restrictions that, even prior to COVID-19, have obstructed access to medication abortion — particularly for people with low incomes and communities of color. The Biden administration must immediately pause enforcement of the mifepristone in-person dispensing requirement during the public health emergency. And the FDA should undertake a comprehensive review of the full set of restrictions on mifepristone to ensure that, beyond the pandemic, patients’ access to this safe, effective medication is based on the latest science and medical evidence. 

Make the Hyde Amendment history once and for all. 

President-elect Biden has pledged his support for ending the Hyde Amendment, a harmful ban on abortion coverage for people enrolled in Medicaid and other insurance programs. For decades, Hyde and related bans have pushed abortion care out of reach for people struggling to make ends meet, particularly women of color — the same communities that face severe health care disparities as a result of structural inequality and are now being hit hardest by the pandemic and economic crisis. 
Now it’s time for Biden to take the critical first step toward ending these discriminatory coverage bans by striking Hyde and all related abortion coverage restrictions from his first budget. This, along with calling on Congress to pass the EACH Woman Act to lift coverage bans, will send a clear message that this administration will work to make abortion not only legal, but also accessible to all. 
 
Enact a nationwide safeguard against state restrictions.

States have passed more than 460 politically motivated laws to push abortion care out of reach over the last decade çefforts buoyed recently by Trump’s appointment of multiple Supreme Court justices. These laws range from bans on abortion from the earliest days of pregnancy, to laws that interfere with the provider-patient relationship like forced ultrasounds and mandatory delay periods, to clinic shutdown laws that force patients to travel long distances (paying for transportation, lodging, and child care in the process) to obtain care. These restrictions have so severely eroded access to care across vast regions of the country, leaving the right to abortion effectively hollow for many people. 

President-elect Biden should also call for swift passage of the Women’s Health Protection Act to address the crisis of state attacks on abortion access. WHPA would put a stop to these state attacks and, paired with EACH, would make care more affordable and accessible for people throughout the country.

As we look back at the last four years and toward a new administration, there’s no question that there’s a lot of work to do — but we’re ready to go. And our elected officials should be too.