The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on Tuesday granted a motion to remand the Fifth Amendment equal protection claim and the 42 USC § 1985 claim in a Maryland case against Wilbur Ross, US Secretary of Commerce, where the plaintiff claimed that the motives behind the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 census were discriminatory.

Now that discovery is re-opened and evidentiary hearing is likely, the district court will probably decide whether the government should be enjoined from adding the citizenship question to the 2020 census after the target date to finalize the census questionnaire, which is June 30, 2019. Therefore, “a preliminary injunction may be necessary to prevent the printing of the census questionnaire from, at least from the government’s perspective, rendering the case moot.”

The Supreme Court heard oral argument on the same issue in Department of Commerce v. New York in April and is on the verge of issuing the opinion.