Agencies are told to provide records on citizens and non-citizens; moves cap weeks of maneuvers after setback in Supreme Court.

President Trump said he was ending efforts to put a citizenship question on the 2020 U.S. census, marking a major retreat from his declarations in recent days that he wouldn’t give up the fight in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling that effectively blocked the move. Speaking in the White House Rose Garden on Thursday, Mr. Trump said he would instead sign an executive order requiring all federal agencies to provide the Commerce Department with “all requested records” on the number of citizens and noncitizens in the country. “We will leave no stone unturned,” Mr. Trump said. He attacked what he called “meritless litigation” for derailing the Republican administration’s effort to add a citizenship question to the census, which critics said would dissuade Hispanics and other minorities from responding to the mandatory questionnaire and would result in an inaccurate population count. But Mr. Trump said the new directive on gathering data would be “far more accurate” than what the census would have produced. The announcement capped two weeks of whipsawing between vows to continue the battle and retreats in the wake of the court’s ruling. Government lawyers had told two courts that the question would be dropped, only to find themselves working through the July 4 holiday to try to lawfully add the question.

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