The U.S. Supreme Court issued an order on Oct. 13 which allows the Trump administration to end the 2020 census count. SCOTUS stayed an order from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which had directed the Trump administration to continue to gather data through the end of October.

The Trump administration had argued that they must be able to conclude the count before the end of October in order to meet a Dec. 31 deadline to report the results to the president. The Justice Department had told the court that “there is virtually no prospect that the [U.S. Census] Bureau will be able to comply with the statutory deadline,” unless they were allowed to end the count.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, saying: “[T]he harms associated with an inaccurate census are avoidable and intolerable,” and that “meeting the deadline at the expense of the accuracy of the census is not a cost worth paying.”

After the order was issued, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that they would be shutting down on Oct. 15. It has also set that date as the postmark deadline for paper census forms sent by mail, and as the end date for collecting responses through phone calls and door-knocking.

Every ten years, the U.S. Census Bureau conducts a nationwide census in order to provide a comprehensive count of the population with demographic information. This information is used by the government in many ways, including for the apportionment of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and the allocation of federal funds.

Additional reading:
Supreme Court cases, October term 2020-2021
Supreme Court of the United States
United States Census Bureau
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Sonia Sotomayor