Trump Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross recently announced that for the first time since 1950, the nationwide census that will be conducted in 2020, will include a question asking all persons living in the U.S. whether or not they are an American citizen. Ross says that the question is being included at the request of the Justice Department to seek data on eligible voters to help enforce protections under the federal Voting Rights Act. However, many critics question the rationale and believe that the true motivation of including the citizenship question is to intimidate undocumented immigrants into not participating in the census process.
The U.S. Constitution requires the federal government to conduct a census every 10 years to tally all American residents, whether they are citizens or not. The census data collected is used to apportion congressional seats to each state and calculate the distribution of federal funds supporting a wide range of programs to state and local governments. California, along with a group of 17 states, seven cities and the U.S. Conference of Mayors has filed a lawsuit against the Census Bureau and Commerce Department in an attempt to remove the citizenship question from the 2020 Census questionnaire.
Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Diana Pliego, policy associate with the National Immigration Law Center. Here, she examines the potential effect of the citizenship question on reducing participation among immigrants, undercounting specific populations and inadequate funding levels for federal programs.
DIANA PLIEGO: The last time that any question about citizenship was asked was in 1950, which of course was a very different time politically and it wasn’t a time where, you know, where we’re in right now where immigrants have been the target of a lot of anti-immigrant policies that have produced a lot of fear in communities and are causing immigrant communities to not wanting to participate in daily life because they’re being targeted in such a heavy way right now. And so it’s important to remember the context that we’re in and why. And that’s why where there’s great concern among advocate groups that this is going to cause a lot of fear and then people will not want to participate in, you know, the goal of the census is to provide an accurate count of all people living in the United States. That’s supposed to be an objective measure and if we have a question that is being thrown in there, you know, untested and we know is politically charged, right? And can produce a lot of fear and as a result hurt participation, that’s just, that’s really hurting the accuracy and the integrity of the census data.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Diana, is there any way to gauge the effect of the question on citizenship when it comes to participation? What are the concerns that your group has about how much participation might drop off if this question is indeed part of the census form in 2020?
DIANA PLIEGO: Yeah. It’s difficult to gauge, you know, how much participation will be affected. What we do know is that there are constant reports of community members who, amidst rumors of policy changes that would affect the immigrant community or, as a result of certain enforcement measures being taken in certain communities – we know that that has affected communities already. You know, parents are afraid to take their children to school. After there’s raids that happened in certain locations, there are parents who choose to not send their kids to school and the next day teachers are reporting empty classrooms missing the majority of their students with these rumored policy changes around access to healthcare and things like that. There’s already a fear in communities that they may not be able to access other things that they need to provide their basic needs that they are entitled to just simply because of a rumor of a policy change.
And so, if we have this very set question going into the census for us, it indicates that immigrant communities will react with fear. And I think for us the concern is, you know, not only would it produce fear in undocumented communities, but this also produces fear – you know, say I’m a daughter who’s still living with their parents and maybe, she was born here and has citizenship, but because they don’t want to indicate that an immigrant family living in this area, they might not want to participate as well. And so it’s not just those who are foreign born who will be impacted by this. It’s the community at large.
BETWEEN THE LINES: What about the lawsuits we’ve been reading about? There are various states across the country that are quite upset about this intention to insert the citizenship question in the census forms and a number of these states are going to or have already initiated lawsuits against the Trump administration. What is the net effect of that? You think that’s a viable way to challenge this move by the Trump administration?
DIANA PLIEGO: Well, it’s definitely showing how there’s a large group of people who are against this, right? Because, you know, the census is something that is rooted in our Constitution and the value that’s placed on the census is something that, you know, even our founders noted. And so I think what that shows is that there are people who have very legitimate concerns about how this is gonna affect – like we were just talking about – all Americans. It’s not just one party or another, it’s gonna affect communities all over the country and they’re standing by the Constitution, right? That this is something that we should not be doing. It was like, you know, like we mentioned before, it’s untested and so, we don’t know the effects that it’s going to do and it’s the fact that it’s being thrown in so last minute really undermines the whole process, right?
A lot of money, a lot of time was spent into ensuring that we had questions that would be able to reflect, be able to include everyone, right? Everyone in the United States, because that is a constitutional duty of the bureau. And so having California and New York and all of these other states come out against this, I think, shows that this is a violation of our Constitution and what we should be doing is making sure that the census actually fulfills its mission to count all people in the United States.
For more information on the National Immigration Law Center, visit nilc.org. Subscribe to our Weekly Summary
