Hansi Lo Wang

Updated at 1:10 p.m. ET

A high-ranking Census Bureau official privately discussed the citizenship question issue with GOP redistricting strategist Thomas Hofeller in 2015, according to emails cited in a new court filing in the legal battle over the potential census question.

The Trump administration left behind a long paper trail as it pushed to get a citizenship question on the 2020 census.

The courts have yet to issue their final word on whether the Trump administration can add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

But starting Thursday, the Census Bureau is asking about a quarter-million households in the U.S. to fill out questionnaires that include the question, "Is this person a citizen of the United States?"

The forms are part of a last-minute, nine-week experiment the federal government is using to gauge how the public could react next year to census forms with the potential census question.

Updated June 8 at 9:15 a.m. ET

More than a year before the Trump administration formally asked the Census Bureau to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, Kris Kobach discussed including the question with officials during President Trump's 2016 election campaign.

Challenges threatening the upcoming 2020 census could put more than 4 million people at risk of being undercounted in next year's national head count, according to new projections by the Urban Institute.

Updated at 10:53 p.m. ET

A major Republican redistricting strategist played a role in the Trump administration's push to get a citizenship question on forms for the 2020 census.

The history of the U.S. census asking about people's citizenship status is complicated.

Many of the stops and starts have been unearthed as part of the legal battle over the decision by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who oversees the Census Bureau, to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

Updated May 20 at 10:38 a.m. ET

Some critics of the citizenship question the Trump administration wants to add to the 2020 census are coming from a group that tends to stay away from politically heated issues — business leaders.

Some communities still recovering from recent natural disasters will receive special visits by 2020 census workers next year to make sure all residents are counted.

Updated April 25 at 5:28 p.m. ET

The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court appear split along ideological lines on whether a citizenship question can be included on forms for the upcoming 2020 census.

Based on their questions during Tuesday's oral arguments at the high court, the justices appear ready to vote 5-4 to allow the Trump administration to add the hotly contested questions to forms for next year's national head count.

Updated April 8 at 6:35 p.m. ET

The Trump administration's plans to add a hotly contested citizenship question to the 2020 census have suffered another major blow in the courts.

The question asks, "Is this person a citizen of the United States?"

A third federal judge has found the decision to include it on forms for the national head count to be unlawful.

Steven Dillingham, the new director of the U.S. Census Bureau, is refusing to step into the controversy surrounding a potential question for the upcoming national head count.

The hotly contested question asks, "Is this person a citizen of the United States?"

Speakers of Arabic — one of the fastest-growing languages in the U.S. — will have one fewer barrier to participating in the upcoming 2020 census.

For the first time, the federal government is planning to officially collect census responses in Arabic along with six other new language options for the head count, including French, Haitian Creole, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese and Tagalog.

Updated 7:53 p.m. ET

A second federal judge has issued a court order to block the Trump administration's plans to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census.

U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg of California found that the administration's decision to add the question violated administrative law.

New security measures at the Department of Defense that limit the release of military records about U.S. troops deployed abroad could put the accuracy of the 2020 census "at risk," according to a newly released internal Census Bureau document.

Updated at 5:50 p.m. ET

The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether the Trump administration can add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The decision grants the administration's request for an immediate review of a lower court's ruling that stopped plans for the question. A hearing is expected to be held in April.

The Trump administration is planning to ask the Supreme Court to review a lower court's ruling that blocks the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 census, according to a Justice Department filing released Tuesday.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has agreed to come before lawmakers again to testify about his controversial decision last year to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

Ross, who oversees the Census Bureau, is set to appear at a March 14 hearing on Capitol Hill before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, the committee's chairman, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., announced Tuesday.

Ever since Alaska joined the union as the 49th state in 1959, the most remote parts of the most northern state have gotten a head start on the national head count.

Updated at 5:08 p.m. ET

A federal judge in New York has ruled against the Trump administration's decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman ordered the administration to stop its plans to include the controversial question on forms for the upcoming national head count "without curing the legal defects" the judge identified in his 277-page opinion released on Tuesday.

Updated Jan. 18 at 6:12 p.m. ET

The last stretch before the start of the 2020 census is upon us.

After months of controversy and uncertainty surrounding a botched contracting process, the Government Publishing Office has announced a new printer for the 2020 census.

Allegations of cronyism, wasteful spending and other misconduct are roiling a little-known federal agency in charge of producing and distributing the government's official documents, including paper questionnaires for the upcoming 2020 census.

Eileen Okada was 5 years old when the U.S. government forced her and her family to live in a stall made for horses.

"I remember the stench. They cleaned it out, of course, but didn't scrub it down. The smell was still there," says Okada, now 81 and a retired elementary school teacher and librarian.

Next year, the U.S. Census Bureau is planning to launch its first-ever field test of a 2020 census form that includes the controversial citizenship question added by the Trump administration. The bureau wants to know how that question may affect responses to the upcoming national head count, the agency announced Thursday.