Census' citizenship question fast-tracked to the Supreme Court

U.S. CENSUS

If the question of citizenship is added to the 2020 Census questionnaire, Asian Americans are most likely to be undercounted, according Census Bureau research.

Nevertheless, the Census continues to insist to include the question despite a lack of testing and objections from AAPI and Latino community advocates and states with large immigrant populations and would be the most affected if an undercount occurs.

“The census is supposed to get a full and accurate count of the U.S. population,” California Sen. Kamala Harris tweeted on Friday night after the Supreme Court announced that it would accept the lawsuit against the administration's proposed question,  thereby skipping the lower appeals courts. The U.S. Census said they needed an early decision so that it could print up its questionnaires in time for the 2020 Census.

“By weaponizing the census, this Administration is violating the idea that everyone count” said the Indian American lawmaker.

"A unique threat to the 2020 Census is the current political climate toward immigrants, which motivates a second undercount scenario," says a report from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC).

"Federal government rhetoric and actions around border security, deportation, and immigrant rights have raised concerns among immigrants, even those legally in the United States," which could raise distrust among those communities," continues thte report.

Moreover, adding a question on citizenship to the 2020 Census could exacerbate that suspicion resulting in an undercount of up 1.6 million people and the loss of at least one House seat, says PPIC. "Furthermore, the question was added too late for the Census Bureau to test approaches to minimizing nonresponse," says the PPIC study.

California was one of the states that filed suit to keep the citizenship question out of the Census.

A federal district judge in New York struck down the plan last month, ruling that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross exceeded his authority when he announced the inclusion of the citizenship question.

Furman said that the likely undercount of immigrants would mean that California would face "a certainly impending loss of representation in the House of Representatives," and Texas, Arizona, Florida, New York and Illinois would face "a substantial risk of losing a seat."

In addition, he said, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Washington and the District of Columbia likely would be among those losing federal funds.

The Commerce and Justice departments, meanwhile, have maintained that the question is needed to help find illegal voters even though the administration's fear of illegal voters has been found to be almost nonexistent. A Trump-appointed task force to find out the extent of illegal voters was disbanded last year for lack of evidence.

If the administration really was sincere about enforcing the Voting Rights Act, it should concentrate its efforts in thwarting efforts to discouraging or confusing voters.

While the court is unable to determine — based on the existing record, at least — what Secretary Ross’s real reasons for adding the citizenship question were, it does find, by a preponderance of the evidence, that promoting enforcement of the (Voting Rights Act) was his real reason for the decision,”  Furman wrote. “Instead, the court finds that the V.R.A. was a post hoc rationale for a decision that the secretary had already made for other reasons.”

“The inclusion of the citizenship question, we think, will have a devastating impact on our communities’ participation in the census. Asian American and Pacific Islander communities are already distrustful of the government,” said Dan Ichinose, director of the Demographic Research Project at Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Los Angeles. 

Research by the Census Bureau itself seems to back up the problems of the citizenship question. The research found that non-Hispanic Asians were the least likely to say they planned to respond to the census and were most concerned that their answers were going to be used against them.
“Including the question will magnify community concern and increase the number of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders who refuse to participate,” Ichinose said.

The AAPI community, especially Japanese Americans, is particularly sensitive to the Census asking the citizenship question and how that information can be misused.

During World War II, the Census Bureau released the specific names and addresses of Japanese Americans to the US Secret Service. This was kept secret for decades and only fully revealed just over 10 years ago. "We remind people of this story because it is clearly within the realm of possibility that the census can be weaponized against communities such as our own," said the Japanese American Citizens League in a statement.

The last time the question about citizenship was asked by the Census was in 1950. 

"By the 1950s, the Census Bureau statisticians realized they get better results from a well-designed sample than they do from a complete count like the census," said Margo Anderson, who wrote a book on the history of the census. Thus, when the decennial census came up again in 1960, the citizenship questions were no longer needed because citizenship questions were asked on the sample questionnaire.

“The Trump administration violated the law by adding a question to the 2020 Census that will undoubtedly reduce participation by immigrants and people of color,” said Vanita Gupta, the president and CEO of the Leadership Conference Education Fund, a civil-rights organization, in a statement.

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