Michael Wines and Adam Liptak

Just hours before, President Donald Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House that he was considering four or five options, including an executive order, to restore the question.

”We’ll see what happens,” Trump said Friday. “We could also add an addition on. So we could start the printing now and maybe do an addendum after we get a positive decision. So we’re working on a lot of things including an executive order.”

The maneuvering capped a chaotic week in which administration officials first promised to abide by a Supreme Court order that effectively blocked the question from next year’s head count, then reversed themselves after Trump denounced their statements on Twitter as “fake” and pledged to restore the question to census forms.

Justice Department lawyers had until Friday afternoon to tell U.S. District Judge George J. Hazel how they would proceed — whether they would come up with a rationale to add the question or abandon the quest altogether.

Late on Friday, Hazel rejected the administration’s request that he freeze a lawsuit before him on the citizenship question and said he would hear arguments on whether the efforts were driven by a desire to discriminate against Hispanics for political gain.

Last week, the Supreme Court blocked the citizenship question on grounds that the rationale behind it — to better enforce the 1965 Voting Rights Act — was essentially made up, as three federal courts had earlier ruled. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion and left open the possibility that the question could be added if the administration presented a better rationale.

Census totals are used to divvy up congressional seats among the 50 states, and as the base for drawing thousands of state and local political boundaries. Critics of the citizenship question say it would lead to an undercount of immigrants, most of whom live in cities that predominantly lean Democratic.

Trump did not say what his options were. But people familiar with the discussions said that among the options being considered was using federal records other than the census questionnaires sent to every household to try to glean information about immigrants.

Another possible option is an executive order, but it was not clear what form it would take or what it would accomplish in light of last month’s Supreme Court decision rejecting the justification for adding the citizenship question.

Justice Dept. Reaffirms Goal of Having Citizenship Question on the Census

WASHINGTON — Justice Department lawyers told a federal judge Friday that they would press ahead in their efforts to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, but indicated they did not know yet what kind of rationale they would put forward.

Justice dept. Reaffirms goal of having citizenship question on the census

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Michael Wines and Adam Liptak

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Justice dept. Reaffirms goal of having citizenship question on the census