Every 10 years the US census takes a total count of the country’s population. This year’s census is in its preliminary stages, but not without controversy. President Donald Trump announced that he plans to include a citizenship question on the census. In response, at least a dozen states have said they’ll sue to keep the question off the census. They fear that including the question will cause undocumented immigrants not to participate which could negatively impact individual states. Census data are used to determine the distribution of federal funds and how many seats each state gets in the House of Representatives.

Morning Shift talks to Margo Anderson, professor of history and urban studies at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, about the history of the census, how its used, and the challenges of collecting the data this year.