A judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of California granted an injunction on Wednesday that prevents a citizenship question from appearing on the 2020 census.

The Secretary of Commerce had previously ordered the question, “Is this person a citizen of the United States?” to appear on the 2020 census.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) had requested the inclusion of the question to support enforcement of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). The DOJ originally declined to request the question be added to the census. However, the DOJ changed position after Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross spoke with Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The court found that the real reason for adding the question in the census was unrelated to enforcing the VRA. Instead, Ross wanted to find a way to add the question and the DOJ was just “meeting [Ross’s] preferences.”

The inclusion of the question was expected to cause a decrease in response rates among non-citizen and Latino communities. The Census Bureau reported that the inclusion of the question would result in the self-response rates of non-citizen households to decline by at least 5.8 percent. One expert estimated that the question would result in a response decline of 6.3 percent to 8.0 percent nationwide, and a decline of 10.5 percent to 14.1 percent in California.

The Census Bureau had previously found that if the goal was enforcement of the VRA, there are cheaper and more accurate methods of finding the required data. Instead, the government can use eight other administrative data records that are already available to the government. The use of the records would cost $1 million and be more accurate than including the question on the census, which would cost at least $27.5 million.

The court found that the decision to include the question violated the Administrative Procedure Act. The court called the inclusion of the question “arbitrary and capricious, represented an abuse of discretion, and was otherwise not in accordance with law.” The inclusion of the question was also ruled unconstitutional for violating the Enumeration Clause of the Constitution because “its inclusion will materially harm the accuracy of the census without advancing any legitimate governmental interest.”

In a separate case, the US Supreme Court has agreed to take up the matter, and arguments are scheduled for April.