Billionaire Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post is requesting Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross “eliminate” the citizenship question that has been added to the 2020 Census.

Since 1950, the citizenship question has not been asked on the full Census, leaving the nation without an exact estimate of how many citizens are in the country and how many noncitizens and illegal aliens are in the country.

In a historic move, President Trump’s administration announced the citizenship question would be put back on the census for 2020, Breitbart News noted.

Immediately following the announcement, attorney generals across the U.S. announced they would sue the administration for putting the citizenship question on the 2020 Census.

Now, the editorial board of Bezos’s Washington Post is jumping on board the calls from left-wing politicians to try to stop the 2020 Census from asking the citizenship question:

The real answer is probably that seemingly small changes to the census form can have massive effects on government spending and congressional representation. A lot of federal funding is distributed based on states’ total population. So are congressional seats. Adding a citizenship question on a form sent by an administration explicitly hostile to migrants is highly likely to depress response rates among immigrants, even those who have naturalized. This would make urban centers in blue states look less populous and, therefore, less deserving of money and representation. [Emphasis added]

Instead of continuing to contest the lawsuit, Mr. Ross should eliminate the new question. [Emphasis added]

The Washington Post editor’s assumption that asking U.S. residents if they are citizens will “depress” response rates is not backed by research. In fact, a study by the Center for Immigration Studies has found the opposite as Breitbart News reported.

Previously, Kansas Secretary of State and gubernatorial candidate Kris Kobach explained to Breitbart News the necessity of knowing the number of citizens living in the country.

One of the most significant reasons is to end the current system of vote dilution where states like California have more representation in Congress because the state is home to the largest foreign-born population.

“Right now, congressional districts are drawn up simply based on the number of warm bodies in each district. Not only are legal aliens counted, but illegal aliens are counted too,” Kobach previously explained. “As a result, citizens in a district with lots of illegal aliens have more voting power than citizens in districts with few illegal aliens.”

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.