A Census Bureau spokesman said the agency's chief operating officer, Ron Jarmin, will assume the director's duties. The president also issued two directives that advocacy groups said were part of efforts to suppress the participation of minorities and immigrants in the 2020 census. Trump’s first directive, issued in 2019, instructed the Census Bureau to use administrative records to figure out who is in the country illegally after the Supreme Court blocked the citizenship question. Oftentimes, Dillingham appeared cut out of the loop on these census-related decisions made by the White House and Commerce Department, which oversees the Census Bureau. The pandemic and errors found in the data have forced the Census Bureau to delay releasing the numbers used to apportion congressional seats until early March.

Those numbers likely aren't going to be ready until early March as the Census Bureau works to fix data irregularities, Department of Justice attorneys said earlier this week. As part of the agreement, the Trump administration attorneys said the Census Bureau would not be releasing figures related to two directives from Trump before the change in administrations. The Trump administration would not be releasing the numbers used for apportioning congressional seats among the states before the change in administrations, as part of the agreement. Several Democratic lawmakers in Congress have followed suit in the past two days, saying Dillingham has allowed the Trump administration to politicize the 2020 census. The Census Bureau did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bureau workers laboring to comply with the Trump order were instructed to “'stand down' and discontinue their data reviews," Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham said in a memo. That revised deadline dealt another blow to the apportionment order because it is weeks after Trump leaves office and President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in Jan. 20. Census Bureau directors have five-year terms and Dillingham's tenure isn't done until the end of the year. Whistleblowers told the Office of Inspector General that the Census Bureau has not set rules for categorizing the citizenship status of U.S. residents. “Presently, the Census Bureau’s highest priority is to successfully complete 2020 Census data processing in order to produce a complete and accurate count for the nation," Dillingham said.

“The delay suggests that the census bureau needs more time to ensure the accuracy of census numbers for all states,” said Terri Ann Lowenthal, a former congressional staffer who specializes in census issues. The Commerce Department oversees the Census Bureau, which conducts the once-a-decade head count of every U.S. resident. They like to maintain the schedule, but that can’t be a priority for them," said Kenneth Prewitt, a former Census Bureau director during President Bill Clinton's administration. The Office of Inspector General said the Census Bureau failed to complete 355,000 re-interviews of households to verify their information was accurate. Former Census Bureau director John Thompson said the quality of the data is “the overarching issue” facing the Census Bureau.

The Census Bureau already was facing a shortened schedule of two and a half months for processing the data collected during the 2020 census — about half the time originally planned. The Census Bureau would not say Thursday what the anomalies were or publicly state if there would be a new deadline for the apportionment numbers. “These types of processing anomalies have occurred in past censuses," Census Bureau director Steven Dillingham said in a statement. “I am directing the Census Bureau to utilize all resources available to resolve this as expeditiously as possible. “The notion that the 2020 Census data could be processed in half the time scheduled given all the obstacles & challenges that Census Bureau encountered defies logic."

The judge also required the Census Bureau to send out a text last Friday to all staff working on the 2020 census that said the head count of every U.S. resident was continuing through Oct. 31. Dillingham said in his statement that the Census Bureau would be letting go of some census workers whose responsibilities were done — such as those counting people living in transitory housing. A census taker from Texas said in an email sent Monday to Koh's court that a manager from the McAllen office had encouraged census takers, also known as enumerators, to resign, claiming they were 100% done. “That is not true," said the census taker, whose name was redacted in the email. The Census Bureau also reported Tuesday that it had more than 203,000 employees working on the 2020 census the second-to-last week in September, down from more than 229,000 workers in the previous week.

But the 2020 census deadline remains in flux, making it uncertain if census takers will finish counting the vast, rural state. Judge Koh wrote in Thursday's decision that the Census Bureau and Commerce Department, which oversees the agency, had violated her injunction “in several ways." “Defendants’ dissemination of erroneous information; lurching from one hasty, unexplained plan to the next; and unlawful sacrifices of completeness and accuracy of the 2020 Census are upending the status quo, violating the Injunction Order, and undermining the credibility of the Census Bureau and the 2020 Census," the judge wrote. The Census Bureau said it sent out the mandated message Friday afternoon. Contact your supervisor with any questions.”The Census Bureau reported that 99.1% of the nation's households had been counted, though several states in the South were trailing that figure.

Steven Dillingham, the director of the U.S. Census Bureau, speaks outside the Oklahoma State Capitol, Friday, Sept. 18, 2020, in Oklahoma City, encouraging people to fill out their census form before the end of the month. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

The accelerated schedule “increases the risks to the accuracy of the 2020 Census," the Inspector General report said. At least two Census Bureau officials interviewed by the Office of Inspector General believe the president's order changed the administration's support for extending the deadlines, the report said. Federal judges on opposite coasts this week are hearing arguments in two lawsuits seeking to extend the 2020 census into October. The judge in the San Jose case earlier this month issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting the Census Bureau from winding down 2020 census operations for the time being. The Census Bureau has a goal of reaching 99% of households.

Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham wears a mask with the words "2020 Census" as he arrives to testify before a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing on the 2020 Census on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, July 29, 2020, in Washington. Democrats on the oversight committee have asked Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to withdraw the appointments of of Nathaniel Cogley and Adam Korzeniewski. The committee also wanted to ask Census Bureau officials about President Donald Trump's order seeking to exclude people in the U.S. illegally from the process of redrawing congressional districts. Because of pandemic-related delays with the 2020 census, the Census Bureau had requested deadline extensions from Congress and had planned to end the head count at the end of October. But with the request stalled in Congress, the Census Bureau announced earlier this month that it would end the 2020 census at the end of September.

Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham holds up his mask with the words "2020 Census" as he testifies before a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing on the 2020 Census on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, July 29, 2020, in Washington. On its website Friday, the bureau listed the deadline for processing data used to apportion the districts as Dec. 31. The Census Bureau website said Friday that the deadline is the end of March. The American Statistical Association said in a statement that the Census Bureau should be granted the deadline extensions, given the challenges it has faced this year. It is critical to give the professional career staff of the U.S. Census Bureau the time and resources to carry out the decennial census," the association said.

Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham wears a mask with the words "2020 Census" as he arrives to testify before a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing on the 2020 Census on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, July 29, 2020, in Washington. Dillingham testified during an emergency congressional hearing that he was unaware of anyone from the Census Bureau playing a role in the order that civil rights groups have called unconstitutional. The bureau is collecting the head count data that will be used to redraw the districts. Concerns about the virus's spread caused the Census Bureau to suspend field operations in March and April and push back deadlines. Trump's order last week showed what the administration's true purpose was in trying to obtain citizenship information, said Gomez, the Democratic lawmaker.

FILE - In this Jan. 21, 2020, file photo, Census Bureau director Steven Dillingham, right, knocks on the door alongside census worker Tim Metzger as they arrive to conduct the first enumeration of the 2020 Census in Toksook Bay, Alaska. Thousands of census takers are about to begin the most labor-intensive part of Americas once-a-decade headcount. The 2020 census started in January in rural Alaska where census takers visited homes much earlier than the rest of the country because of the difficulty in reaching those places. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)

FILE - In this Jan. 21, 2020, file photo, Census Bureau director Steven Dillingham, right, knocks on the door alongside census worker Tim Metzger as they arrive to conduct the first enumeration of the 2020 Census in Toksook Bay, Alaska. Thousands of census takers are about to begin the most labor-intensive part of Americas once-a-decade headcount. The 2020 census started in January in rural Alaska where census takers visited homes much earlier than the rest of the country because of the difficulty in reaching those places. Census takers will ask questions about who lives in a household and the residents’ race, sex and relations to each other. The temporary census takers are being paid from $14 to $30 an hour, depending on their location.

ORLANDO, Fla. A top House Democrat on Tuesday said the addition of two new staffers to top positions at the U.S. Census Bureau is an effort by the Trump administration to politicize the federal government's largest statistical agency during its biggest operation. U.S. Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, chairwoman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, called the men starkly partisan allies and said their hiring was an attempt by President Donald Trump to politicize the agency after its failed attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The Census Bureau currently is halfway through conducting the once-a-decade count of every U.S. resident. The decision to create two new senior positions at the Census Bureau and fill them with political operatives is yet another unprecedented attempt by the Trump Administration to politicize the 2020 Census," Maloney said in a statement. Census Bureau director Steven Dillingham said that the men would help the bureau complete the census, which helps determine $1.5 trillion in federal spending and how many congressional seats each state gets.

As the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic escalates throughout the country, the schedule for the 2020 Census has been significantly impacted. In light of this impact, U.S. Census Bureau Director Director Steven Dillingham and U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross are requesting “statutory relief from Congress of 120 additional calendar days to deliver final apportionment counts,” officials said. This news comes after the bureau adjusted the census operations schedule last month due to the COVID-19 outbreak. With this extension, the bureau would deliver apportionment counts to the President by April 20, 2021 instead of its original date of December 31, 2020. Redistricting data would then be delivered to the states by July 31, 2021 instead of its scheduled April 1, 2021, officials said.