The shortened work of the U.S. Census is being opposed by New York Attorney General Letitia James backed by a coalition state and local officials from around the country. 

A lawsuit by the National Urban League was previously filed against President Donald Trump's administration over the shortened Census. 

The lawsuit comes after the Census, a count of the U.S. population and demographics every 10 years, was shortened by a month for self-response questionnaires and door-to-door follow-ups by enumerators. 

The concern is that the reduced time will lead to an under count, especially of immigrants, poorer communities, and communities of color. 

“The Trump Administration’s efforts to reduce the time for the collection of census data is just the latest in a long list of efforts taken to undermine the census and manipulate the population count to the president’s liking,” James said.

“New York and numerous other states across the country are already falling behind in responding to the census as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and a multitude of other factors, so now is not the time to be decreasing response periods. We will fight this action, like we have previous actions taken by this administration to undermine the count, and we will win. We will continue this fight until we have a census count that is truly reflective of our population. Everyone counts, therefore everyone must be counted,” said James.

The Census is key for how congressional boundaries are drawn, as well as apportionment for the House of Representatives and federal funding is allocated as well as for how businesses make decisions on where to bring jobs.