2020 Census to include citizenship question
President Trump 's Commerce Department said Monday evening that the 2020 Census will include a question on citizenship, despite the strong objections of Democrats.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced his decision to reinstate the citizenship question in a post on the Commerce website . The citizenship question has not appeared on the census since 1950, but Ross argued that collecting citizenship data has been “a long-standing historical practice."
The Department of Justice (DOJ) under Attorney General Jeff Sessions has reportedly pushed fo r inclusion of the question, arguing that it would allow the the department to better enforce the Voting Rights Act.
For the approximately 90 percent of the population who are citizens, this question is no additional imposition," Ross wrote in his memo. "And for the approximately 70 percent of non-citizens who already answer this question accurately on the [American Community Survey], the question is no additional imposition."
Census data is used to redraw House districts and the number of House seats each state receives, as well as determining each state’s number of electoral votes in a presidential election.
Democrats have raised concerns that adding the question would result in an inaccurate population count because it would discourage some immigrants from filling out the questionnaire given the Trump administration's crackdown on those in the country illegally.
Ross responded to such concerns in his decision, saying the need for accurate data and the limited burden of adding it to the census "outweigh fears about potentially lower response rate."
"The citizenship data provided to DOJ will be more accurate with the question than without it, which is of greater importance than any adverse effect that may result from people violating their legal duty to respond," Ross wrote.
Announcements of legal challenges to the Commerce Department move followed swiftly.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra tweeted he would be "filing suit" against the "illegal" policy change.
Becerra was one of 17 Democratic state attorneys general who wrote Ross a letter last month warning him against including the citizenship question. Doing so, they argued, would be unconstitutional.
“Including a question on the 2020 Census that would manipulate the count by scaring people away from being counted — causing grave harm to the states and our residents — is inconsistent with those obligations,” the attorneys general wrote at the time.
The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law issued a statement Monday night sharply condemning the announcement. The group called the inclusion of a citizenship question “a clear attempt to politicize the process,” and warned it would discourage minority communities from participating.
“This decision comes at a time when we have seen xenophobic and anti-immigrant policy positions from this administration,” organization president Kristen Clarke said in a statement. “This is an arbitrary and untested decision that all but guarantees that the Census will not produce a full and accurate count of the population as the Constitution requires.”
But at least one GOP lawmaker offered full-throated praise on Twitter for the 2020 Census announcement:
Warren Davidson Retweeted Andrew Restuccia
# CitizenshipMatters Apportionment for Congressional seats and electoral votes should be based on citizens, not on residents. Otherwise citizens are underrepresented... For example, California gets roughly three extra members of Congress based on estimates of illegal residents.
By law, the bureau has to provide Congress with the final wording of the census questionnaire by March 31, this Saturday.
Article is LOCKED by author/seeder
The census is only supposed to count people,not their status.
NOPE! There is nothing "unconstitutional" about asking questions, after all we ask about race (which the left absolutely demands), we ask about gender, head of the family status, but we are not supposed to ask about the important question of citizenship? Interesting
A whole lot to do over nothing. Ask the question. If you don't like it tough chit.
Interestingly enough, blue states like California aren't the only ones who will likely be uncounted (which leads to less federal dollars and less congressional representation). Texas and many other states in the south especially have higher likelihood of an undercount now. This has nothing to do with 'if you have nothing to hide....this is supposed to be the most accurate count of who is living where. I can imagine another unintended consequence of a decision made to tickle the base, to hell with the fallout. Wait for Texas to join California. My prediction.
Wait for Texas to join California.
I'd be willing to bet that Texas, along with Arizona and even New Mexico have a lot less illegal aliens than CA, after all CA rewards illegals, so I don't think the other border states will lose what CA will, nor do I believe that Texas is going to turn blue. Politicians in Texas still depend on American citizens to get elected.
It will be interesting, and I look forward to it.
BTW, this count should be much different, now that we don't have "Acorn" out doing the leg work:
There are roughly 44 million legal non-citizen immigrants living in the US each year. Most are here on work visas and pay US property, sales and income taxes. To require a citizenship question on the census would eliminate them from counting for State and local resources even though they are here legally and pay taxes and deserve representation.
They don't care. The only real bottom line here is to get rid of any immigration, legal or not. This is especially true if the immigrant has brown or black skin. This is silent racism at it's worst.
Oh, "racism" so you got nothing left.
BTW, Who are the races involved?
I hope your'e not talking about Hispanics, who are predominately white & Christian?
don't worry Vic.....the racism of the right is only a small part of anti-immigration fervor. If you really want to read some of the rest......look back at my other responses..... your attempt at baiting won't work.
don't worry Vic
I'm not worried about a thing. My concerns ended at approx 2:AM on Nov 9th, 2016.
Who is online
44 visitors
We shall see if and why adding such a question would be unconstitutional. I am glad it was done. I had hoped that the word Hispanic would have been dropped from the census as well, but I guess it's one thing at a time.
BTW I forgot the origin of this article:
Just how should Hispanics identify themselves then?
I don't know, probably like them always have.
The way they did back in the 60's - like everyone else - you check one of the boxes stating race of the individual.
It’s constitutional. Obama dropped the question in the 2010 census. It was there in at least the long form in 2000 and on the main form in decades past.
Seeing how our government moves at a snails' pace and Mr. Obama didn't take office until 01/20/2009 it is not only unlikely that he had anything to do with the revised shortened form of 2010,
it's damn near impossible that it was even on anyone's radar as the combined outgoing Bush Administration and incoming Obama Admin were grappling with the economic situations.
The 2010 Census form was the result of the 1995 Paperwork reduction Act. Period.
Please note that the form is officially designated as form D-61 ( 1-15-2009 ) dated prior to Obama's inauguration.
Eighty Year Olde Commerce Sec. Wilbur Ross is bound and determined to bring back the 1950's...
Identity and ageism politics rear their ugly heads again. Perhaps you didn't know that Wilbur Ross was a registered Democrat until 2016. It seems that the D-Party has quite a few "olde" leaders, among them are Ross, Waters, Pelosi.
Sometimes I wonder why the word "illegal" means "still okay" to some people.
I've always preferred the word "Undocumented" and if they are hard working, tax paying, law abiding, contributing members of society, then that means still OK to me.
So if you lose your wallet, with all your documentation, you are illegal?
So you should probably be careful if you ever decide to visit this country.
The resident liberals are well known for saying lots of imbecilic things about all kinds of things.
That's not the ones we are concerned about. It's the criminals amongst them, from simply accused, to ones with long and violent records, that seem to protected and coddled by the left. And there are a lot of them. The question remains....why does the left hide and protect the criminal element of illegals?
Tell that to a cop the next you are stopped by one and, he asks for your ID and, you don't have it on you.
Perhaps you should learn to post a little clearer. Yes it is a matter of record, though not public, but you make the Comment removed for CoC violation [ph] assumption that the police or ICE officer either checks, or has access to records, when they only have your word as to your name and identity. So your claim would assume that no US citizen has ever been "accidentally" deported. Do you maintain that belief? If so, should I start linking news articles?
The most logical answer is politics. Liberals tell them that they are different, victims and dependent on the democratic party. As Hillary privately referred to them - "the needy Hispanics".
And you can bet illegals are voting in CA!
I dare you to prove that this is permitted.
It can't be proved either way...CA won't let anyone see their voting rolls
Well Done.
I didn't forget, just felt the need to point out the CA cover-up
You're at the top of your game today!
Reminds me...got to send another donation to Judicial Watch
And there are eleven others states that allow illegals to get drivers licenses, so it's a big and growing problem.
If you tried setting yourself up - without permission - in virtually any other country on Earth, you would be deported no matter how "hard working" etc you were. Some places actually imprison people who come into the country illegally. How come no one ever says countries like Mexico, Italy, France, India, Japan, China, etc., are racist, xenophobic, and so on when they evict (read: deport) uninvited guests?
I guess this means I win again. No facts, just personal insults on your part. Deleted - Skirting CoC {SP}
Actually I have had that happen and the cop looked everything up on his car computer. easy peasy. But I did speak to him respectfully......
"Some people" actually believe that ILLEGAL and LEGAL are synonyms.
In CA it means preferred
Seems to be a legitimate basic question to me.
Some will answer it. Some will not.
There it is! You don't have to answer that question. Notice the AG of CA is not telling people that. Instead he makes a show of suing the Federal Government (knowing he will lose). All to put a lock on the all important Hispanic vote in permissive, lawless California
Further proof that they care more for the illegals than they do real citizens. They just appointed an illegal to a state post . What a shit hole.
Well put!
The census, as used in the constitution, is meant to provide an accurate body count of those living in the Country.
.
.
The Supreme's have ruled several times that questions can be added to the Constitutionally required body count with out stepping on the 4th amendment but putting a question in the census that might negatively impact the count might not fly.
It be like adding a question asking about how many times has someone in your household put a hamster up their keisterr?
Saying it's because they just want to know how many " bad tuna's " live in the area but really they're trying to keep the census from being accurate by asking a question that might cause harm to the respondent.
Otherwise known as the Richard Gere data collection.
Reminds me of one of the funniest radio stories ever:
Leave it to the lunatics in California to sue over something so harmless.
California would do better if it concentrated on how to reduce taxes in their state so they don't continue to lose middle-and upper-class people to neighboring states with far more equitable taxes.
They don't want the middle class, they want immigrants, legal & illegal, who vote democrat. They are doing a good job - 25% of those living in CA were born outside the USA
Better check out those stats for Texas too. Do you think California is the only state with a large immigrant population? Quite a few have moved into red states, and their representation will also be impacted. Wait for Texas to join California.
Legal immigrants don't get a vote until they become citizens. We average around 44 million legal non-citizen immigrants. Illegal immigrants do not get a vote and there is no evidence of any widespread voter fraud perpetrated by illegal immigrants. The right wing anecdotal evidence of such has been debunked many times and is simply a lie being told to gin up racist indignation among conservative Republicans. The total amount of actual vote fraud found in multiple non-partisan investigations has been at most .02%.
What's worse - the statistical irrelevance of possible illegal voters - .004%, or the actual numbers of Americans not able to vote because some partisan cut voter rolls - 4%?
BS I'll believe that the day California let's us see its voter rolls
What evidence do you have to the contrary? Legal immigrants definitely don't want to risk their legal status by committing a crime and illegal immigrants stay away from any place they could be have their undocumented status discovered. Are there perhaps a handful of crazies who attempt it? I would have to assume so since every blue moon I hear of one or two, but nothing that could actually sway any election results. And if we have evidence of the few trying but getting caught and arrested, that shows the system works. The real voter fraud is the intentional disenfranchisement of legal eligible voters who get purged off rolls because they didn't respond to a piece of snail mail, or legal citizens working two or more jobs who need the extra voting days or can only get to the polls on Sundays but find Republicans have limited the time they can vote, reduced the number of polling places in their neighborhoods and their voter ID laws were found to have "targeted the black communities with surgical precision" in some States.
The disenfranchisement of eligible voters is a far more egregious violation of our rights than any sparse illegal voting that might occur.
"The Supreme Court on Monday refused to revive a restrictive North Carolina voting law that a federal appeals court had struck down as an unconstitutional effort to “target African-Americans with almost surgical precision.”
"The law rejected the forms of identification used disproportionately by blacks, including IDs issued to government employees, students and people receiving public assistance."
"The court also found that the early voting restrictions had a much larger effect on black voters, who “disproportionately used the first seven days of early voting.” The law, the court said, eliminated one of two “souls to the polls” Sundays, when black churches provided rides to polling places."
Any additional restrictive voter ID laws specifically targeting eligible minorities NEGATES TENS OF THOUSANDS of legally eligible voters. Your "One illegal vote" is a drop in the bucket compared to the voters disenfranchised by conservative Republican voter ID laws that were supposedly attempting to stop the one illegal vote from being cast, but we all know that's a convenient lie used by bigots and white supremacists who seethe and gnash their teeth at the legal eligible minority voters.
"It is significant that only 27,000 votes currently separate President-elect Donald Trump and Secretary Hillary Clinton when 300,000 registered voters in the state lacked the strict forms of voter ID required. 5 Wisconsin’s voter turnout was at its lowest level in two decades. Voter turnout in Milwaukee, where 70 percent of the state’s African American population lives, decreased by 13 percent; this meant 41,000 fewer votes ."
We can't afford it; not if the AG is going to keep suing the feds over bullshit and prosecuting honest citizens who cooperate with the feds. Gotta pay all those lawyers.
Hey, maybe they will organize a march of illegal aliens who don't want to admit that they are breaking our laws by answering a question!!
I recommend we have ICE on standby and a few Air Force C-130, C-17 and C-5 to fly them back.
And just for grins and whistles, have some T-10 parachutes and Jumpmasters from the 82d Airborne ready. The Air Force won't even have to land. Just open a door and out they go.
If we have to have parachutes I think we should use surplus WWII parachutes. I think we can skip the jumpmasters or any time teaching how to use the chutes.
I don't think there are many WWII chutes left. The Army just switched from the T-10 to the T-11 so there are still plenty of T-10's around.
As far as the jumpmasters, I, being a jumpmaster myself, figure they would enjoy the training. I know I would.
Exactly!
AH. Now I get it.
Why do the conservative fundies only like to be constitutional originalists when it meets their objectives? There is only one constitutional purpose of the census and that is to determine the number of people living within the borders of the country. The census only provides a count, not an identification of citizenship or ethnicity. This is a ploy to attack blue states and attempt to reapportion congressional seats and money to red states. With their gerrymandering scam going south, they need a new scam to stay in power........Must admit.....pretty clever.
Well, if those seats and money are being acquired by counting illegal aliens, those states should be attacked in this way. How do you possibly justify the acquisition of Congressional power and federal aid by counting people who aren't supposed to be here in the first place?
Let's make a deal. Play your funding games, but add a provision that no state gets one penny more back from the feds than they place into the treasury. That will bankrupt red states and provide needed funds to blue states. That only seems fair to me.
That makes no sense to me and furthermore has nothing to do with the census.. Your defense of "blue states" falls flat when you consider California dosen't just welcome immigrants, especially the ILLEGAL variety, it draws them in for political reasons. Those liberal hacks did a terrible thing to a lot of middle class Americans. It's time to correct it
Why should red states get 50% of the money that is collected from blue states like California and New York? If you perceive them to have a problem, they should get the money back to solve the "problem" if they so choose. Otherwise, shouldn't they, to coin a conservative phrase, say "it's our money, let us keep it?"
The truth is, this is a political ploy, designed to punish blue states and further reward red states. Beware, however, you might get what you wish for. As Texas, Florida, Georgia, and a few other larger red states house more and more undocumented people, they will probably realize that this new scam is going to hurt their republican party more than it will help them.
Doc, just wait until they realize how many red states like Texas will also be impacted. They just haven't figured it out yet.
Not so simple as if it were just a random inquiry, it relies on those numbers to appropriate representation in the House of Representatives for states as well as for the appropriation of federal funding. That's what this is about.
In this case it would also be very interesting to see how many illegal aliens (assuming they answer) are living in places like CA.
AND TEXAS
Tex-ASS
Why in the world would it be unconstitutional? Exactly which part of the Constitution does it violate? This question or ones very much like it have been on every census (except, I think, for 2010). It wasn't a problem before.
Of course he is. If you make it look like California has more people, you can argue for more seats in Congress, more Electoral College votes, and more resources from the federal government. Sadly, the pieces of garbage who run the state don't respect that all of those things are supposed to be for citizens of the United States, not for people who have no right to be here.
Who cares? I don't even want them counted unless it's so we can keep a good count while we're deporting them. And anyway, they'll get counted regardless. Every year, some people blow off the census and census agents have to physically go to door-to-door to interview people. So the integrity of the census will be just fine.
Ahh, bullshit.
First of all, it's not xenophobic to want to know who is in your country, control who comes into your country, or establish structures and methods to keep out people who would sneak in over the border. Those things are standard exampled of any sovereign country controlling its domain - something every country has the right to do.
Second, there are no anti-immigrant policies. There are anti- illegal immigrant (i.e. alien) policies, but again, every country has such policies and virtually every country on the planet has stricter policies in that regard than the United States.
Answer the question. Why isn't the constitutional reason for conducting a census good enough for you? The census is only supposed to count people,not their status. You seem to be more than willing to violate the constitution to meet your goals.
He did. It's being abused
You've been answered time and time again. Answer the questions put to you.
You know you're ignoring a lot of factors that didn't come into play in 1790. This wasn't a welfare nation and the country was wide open to people all over the world because we needed many more people to grow this country. The numbers are as accurate as the honesty of the people doing the counting and California fails that test. When they feel like they can allow as many illegals to reside in their state as they want, it gives them unfair advantage in the House of Representatives. Maybe we can make a deal with them like we did in 1787. Let each illegal count as 3/5 of a person. It worked for almost a hundred years.