Census director to resign; Trump loses attempt to affect congressional representation by not counting undocumented Americans

Diego M. Radzinschi / ALM)

UPDATE: (Jan. 18, 3 p.m. ET) Census Director Steve Dillingham will be stepping down on Jan. 20, cutting short by nearly a year the five-year director term, which was scheduled to expire on Dec. 31.

Dillingham's resignation was revealed Monday (Jan. 18) by the Talking Points Memo based on the Census Bureau's internal emails.

Earlier, Views From the Edge reported:

In the waning days of the Donald Trump administration, courts and government bureaucrats are seeking ways to repair the damage he has wrought the last four years.

A federal court has placed a 21-day stay Friday on Trump's executive order for the U.S. Census exclude undocumented immigrants in its data, thus preventing Trump from fiddling with the data.

Trump's attempt to use the altered Census to affect the apportionment of  congressional seats is officially dead.

“Neither the Census Bureau nor the Department of Commerce will report or publicly disclose any population counts or estimates relating to the population as of April 1, 2020, including counts or estimates of the illegal alien/undocumented immigrant population, prior to the change of Administration on January 20, 2021,” the Census Bureau said in a statement.

An official Order by the Court in the National Urban League case was issued in which the Department of Commerce and U.S. Census Bureau are defendants.  

The Order enters a Stipulation for a 21-day stay in the case, and all necessary and appropriate steps must be taken to ensure compliance with the Court’s Stipulation and Order.  Accordingly, all Census Bureau staff are hereby instructed to read the order and ensure compliance with the following:

1. Reports, estimates, or data relating to the July 21, 2020, Presidential Memorandum on Excluding Illegal Aliens from the Apportionment Base following the 2020 Census will not be finalized, reported or publicly disclosed prior to the change of Administration on January 20, 2021. Should such information be finalized after the change of Administration but prior to the end of the proposed stay, Defendants would provide Plaintiffs with 7 days’ detailed notice prior to reporting or publicly disclosing it.
2. Reports, estimates, or data relating to Executive Order 13880, entitled “Collecting Information About Citizenship Status in Connection with the Decennial Census” (July 11, 2019), will not be finalized, reported or publicly disclosed prior to the change of Administration on January 20, 2021. Should such information be finalized after the change of Administration but prior to the end of the stay, Defendants would provide Plaintiffs with 7 days’ detailed notice prior to reporting or publicly disclosing it.
3. Neither the Census Bureau nor the Department of Commerce will report or publicly disclose any population counts or estimates relating to the population as of April 1, 2020, including counts or estimates of the illegal alien/undocumented immigrant population, prior to the change of Administration on January 20, 2021. To the extent such population counts or estimates are developed after the change of Administration but prior to the end of the stay, Defendants would provide Plaintiffs with 7 days’ detailed notice prior to reporting or publicly disclosing them.

If Trump had succeeded in his attempt to affect the final Census data, it could have resulted in an undercount and  shortchange representation for cities and states, such as California, New York, Florida and Texas, that have heavy immigrant populations.  Such an undercount could have reduced services and federal funds directed at those cities and states to help its immigrant populations.

Last week, a whistleblower reported that the Census Director had been pressuring staff to gather up the numbers of immigrants and undocumented Americans so he could submit the report to Trump before his Jan. 20 departure from office. That effort was halted when the Inspector General asked for the asked for documentation of Dillingham's order.

“The Trump Administration's attacks on the Census have always been attacks on communities of color," said Rep. Judy Chu, chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. 

"The obsession with singling out undocumented immigrants for the purpose of exclusion – something that is clearly contrary to the intent of the Constitution – is just another attempt to distort the Census to shift power and resources away from diverse states like California."

EDITOR'S NOTE; A word of caution. This is news laced with opinion. Readers should consult several news sources to form their own opinion.

School is named after undocumented American Jose Antonio Vargas

SCREEN CAPTURE / CBS

Undocumented Amercan Jose Antonio Vargas speaks at the school's dedication.

Monday morning, students are expected to be walking the halls of the only school  in the United States named after an undocumented immigrant.

On Thursday (Aug. 15), the Jose Antonio Vargas Elementary School in Mountain View, CA. was officially named after the immigration activist from the Philippines.

“This school, our school, represents the power of community. How to treat people with respect. How to live your life with love. How to live a life of continuous education that we can never stop learning, and learning about each other,” said the school's namesake, who still lives in the Bay Area.

"I don't really have words for how meaningful this honor is, I've been speechless for a few days," Vargas, 37, told CNN. "I hope that this is a school where students and their families feel welcome in America, no matter where they come from."

Vargas lived about a mile from the new school attending Crittenden Middle School and Mountain View High School. He didn't learn of his immigration status until 1997 when he tried to get a California driver's license and couldn't because his documents were fraudulent. At first, he kept his immigration status a secret.

He secured a private scholarship to attend San Francisco State University. Vargas went on to become a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle and the Washington Post. It was at the Post where he won a Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for team coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting.

In 2011, he revealed in a New York times oped that he was an undocumented immigrant. Vargas’ family sent him from the Philippines to the United States as a child, to be raised by his grandparents. The 38-year-old has since become an outspoken activist for immigration reform.

“I wouldn’t be the human being that I am without my community. I define American as community. The community of people who see you and make you feel whole,” said Vargas.

Last September, he published a memoir, "Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen."

When asked by CBS what message the naming of the school sends to DonaldTrump, Vargas puased before answering:

“We live in such a divided time right now but every community has to decide who’s welcome. There are an estimated 350,000 undocumented immigrants in the Bay Area alone. I hope they feel welcome in this area. I know I do.”

SCREEN CAPTURE / CBS

Jose Antonio Vargas meets one of the students who will be attending the scchool named after him.

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immigrant communities on edge as Trump postpones ICE raids

Trump is playing with us. I hate it! He tweeted this moments ago.

Immigrants all over the US and their allies and advocates are gearing up for Sunday when Donald Trump says a massive roundup of immigrants, refugees and undocumented is scheduled to begin.

Twitter has been humming ever since Trump issued his own tweet on earlier this week that the deportation of "millions" will take place next week beginning as early as Sunday morning. There are tweets with phone numbers for legal representation, how to behave if ICE knocks on your door and what rights do potential deportees have.

ICE agents reportedly will target immigrants in Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, Baltimore, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York City, and San Francisco for deportation as early as Sunday, sources told the Miami Herald.

"The people that Ice will apprehend have already been ordered to be deported," Trump tweeted. "This means that they have run from the law and run from the courts. These are people that are supposed to go back to their home country. They broke the law by coming into the country, & now by staying."

Particularly vulnerable are the thousands of South and Southeast Asian Americans -- Cambodians, Vietnamese, Laotians, Bengalis, Malaysians, Afghanis -- whose families to sought asylum from America's wars in Asia, religious and ethnic persecution, those who have had run-ins with the law (even minor violatins) when they were teenagers and who ICE has targeted for deportation in the past year.
One of several immigrant advocacy groups, Define American, offered this advice: 

1. You don’t have to open the door if an ICE agent comes to your home. ICE is only allowed to enter your home if they have a valid search or arrest warrant with your correct name &/or address, signed by a judge or magistrate, not an ICE official.

2. You have the right to remain silent and don’t have to answer any questions. 

3. Do not sign anything without a lawyer present. 

4. Record your interaction by phone and contact a lawyer immediately. 

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Sunday Read: Undocumented immigrants from Asia grow to 1.5 million

AAPI communities' conceren about immigration continues to grow.

The number of unauthorized immigrants to the US from Asia has risen in the decade 2007 to 2017, from 1.3 million to 1.5 million, based on an analysis by the Pew Research Center.

During that same period, the number of Mexican unauthorized immigrants declined while the total from other Central America ticked up. Mexicans made up less than half of all unauthorized U.S. immigrants (47%) in 2017 for the first time, according to the Center’s estimate, compared with 57% in 2007. 

The number of unauthorized immigrants rose over the 2007-2017 decade from two birth regions: Asia and Central America. The numbers declined over the past decade from two others: South America and the combined regions of Europe and Canada. The decline was statistically significant among European-born unauthorized immigrants, but not among those from Canada.

The data released by Pew on June 12 also shows that unauthorized immigrants from Asia is led by those from India, China and the Philippines, according to Pew.

The decline in unauthorized immigrants from Mexico and rise from other parts of the world is one sign of a change in how recent arrivals to this population enter the country. A growing share of U.S. unauthorized immigrants do not cross the border illegally, but probably arrive with legal visas and overstay their required departure date. These “likely overstays” have made up a large majority of unauthorized immigrant arrivals since 2010, according to Pew Research Center analysis.

The Center’s estimate of unauthorized immigrants includes 1.5 million or more people who have temporary permission to stay in the U.S. but could be subject to deportation by changes in government policy. In 2017, they included about 320,000 people from 10 nations with Temporary Protected Status, and about 700,000 beneficiaries of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).  

A rising number of people who have applied for asylum and are awaiting a ruling. The majority of those refugees waiting to be interviewed by an understaffed and overwhelmed immigration force fall into this latter group.

As the number of unauthorized immigrants shrank by 14% from 2007 to 2017, the U.S. lawful immigrant population continued to grow. During this period, the population of lawful U.S. immigrants – citizens and noncitizens, on permanent and temporary visas – rose by almost a quarter, to 35.2 million.

Unauthorized immigrants were 23% of the 45.6 million foreign-born residents in the U.S. in 2017.

Despite the decline of unauthorized immigrants over the decade, the number of in 2017 was triple the 3.5 million in 1990.

While mainstream media continues to focus on immigrants from Mexico and Central America, the plight of immigrants from Asia, unauthorized and those who are here legally, continue to be overlooked.

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Sunday Read: Jose Antonio Vargas - Wary undocumented citizen on a book tour

JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS

JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS is on a cross-county book tour promoting his memoir, looking over his shoulder for ICE agents.

The U.S.'s best known undocumented American has written a memoir about his journey to America and what has happened to him since he revealed his immigration status after winning a Pulitzer Prize.

Vargas has been on the move since Donald Trump took office after his landlord in L.A. advised him to leave out of fear government actions against Vargas.

“The building manager was like, 'Hey, this might not be a good idea for you to stay here because we don’t know if we’ll be able to protect you if ICE showed up,’” Vargas told NBC. “The moment he said that, it captured my predicament in a way that I have a home, but it’s not really my home.”

He went off the grid. Not only for his own safety, but also to collect his thoughts and write his memoir.

At one point, after Trump's 2016 election, he broke out of hiding. After careful consideration and discarding the suggestion of friends to move to Canada, Vargas popped up publicly as the guest of Rep. Nancy Pelosi for Donald Trump's first State of the Union in 2017.

Now he is on the move again. This time the Filipino American journalist and activist is on a tour promoting his book, Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen, which has received great reviews considering the timeliness of the subject.

“l cried reading this book, realizing more fully what my parents endured,”  endorsed Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club.

Vargas came to the U.S. as a 12-year old boy living in the San Francisco Bay Area with relatives. He was sent here by his mother, something that he explores in his book about feelings of abandonment and the power of a mother's love.

Interviewed by NBC, he said writing a memoir is akin to "performing an emotional root canal on one’s self without novocaine." Vargas said the book essentially was a work of personal exploration and self-realization.

“Working on this book gave me the kind of clarity that I needed to face and see as a 37-year-old man who has been displaced and because of that displacement has displaced himself. Once I got closer to the end, I realized I wasn’t only hiding from the government, I was hiding from myself,” he said. “I also realized in the process that home isn’t something I shouldn’t have to earn. It’s actually a basic right to have a home — to feel like you belong in a place.

Vargas won his Pulitzer in 2008 as part of the Washington Post team that covered the shootings at Virginia Tech.

He is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker, and a leading voice for the human rights of immigrants. He is the founder and CEO of Define American, the nation’s leading non-profit media and culture organization that fights injustice and anti-immigrant hate through the power of storytelling.

In 2011, the New York Times Magazine published a groundbreaking essay he wrote in which he revealed and chronicled his life in America as an undocumented immigrant. A year later, he appeared on the cover of TIME magazine worldwide with fellow undocumented immigrants as part of a follow-up cover story he wrote. 

He then produced and directed Documented, a documentary feature film on his undocumented experience. It aired on CNN, streamed on Netflix, and received a 2015 NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Documentary. Also in 2015, MTV aired White People, an Emmy-nominated television special he produced and directed on what it means to be young and white in a demographically-changing America.

Vargas is a proud graduate of San Francisco State University (’04), where he was named Alumnus of the Year in 2012, and Mountain View High School (’00).

An elementary school named after Vargas will open in his hometown of Mountain View, California in 2019.

Thus far, there have been no problems on his nationwide book tour. He plans to stick to his schedule  (See attached.) fully aware that he's letting ICE know his whereabouts.

Vargas eventually came to the conclusion to abandon the move to Canada: 

From his memoir, he writes: "I refused to let a presidency scare me away from my own country. I refused to live a life of fear defined by a government that doesn’t even know why it fears what it fears. Because I am not a citizen by law or by birth, I’ve had to create and hold on to a different kind of citizenship, something more akin to what I call citizenship of participation. Citizenship is showing up. Citizenship is using your voice while making sure you hear other people around you. Citizenship is how you live your life. Citizenship is resilience."
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California declares itself a sanctuary state

A CONTINENT separates California and Donald Trump in more ways than one.
California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill, SB 54, that would make California a sanctuary state, the latest salvo in the ongoing war between the Golden State and the White House.

“These are uncertain times for undocumented Californians and their families, and this bill strikes a balance that will protect public safety, while bringing a measure of comfort to those families who are now living in fear every day,” Brown said in a statement.

The signing of the bill by Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, enacts on a state-wide level protections for undocumented immigrants that already exist in several California cities, including San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland.

The law will not affect major aspects of U.S. immigration enforcement, Brown noted in his statement. It does not prohibit sheriffs from allowing federal immigration authorities into their jails and does not freeze deportation proceedings for prison inmates, Brown said.

"The signing of SB 54 into law because it will significantly improve protections for immigrants in California," stated Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus Policy Director Angela Chan. 

"This victory is the result of community organizing and immigrants bravely sharing their stories about being turned over to ICE at the hands of local law enforcement. We look forward to working to pass more protections for immigrants throughout California in the years to come," Chan said.

The California Values Act (SB 54) will

• Prohibit local law enforcement from automatically transferring people to federal immigration authorities, with some exceptions.
• Protect against unconstitutional detentions by barring local law enforcement from holding someone in custody, beyond their release date, for immigration agents.
• Ensure that California schools, hospitals, libraries, and courthouses remain safe and accessible spaces for everyone in California.

The bill will go into effect on January 1, 2018.

California leads the nation 2.3 million undocumented immigrants. About a third of that are undocumented Asian immigrants, according to Public Policy Institute of California.

Since January 2016, the PPIC Statewide Survey has asked Californians four times whether “there should be a way for [undocumented immigrants] to stay in the country legally, if certain requirements are met.” Each time, 82% or more have supported this idea. 

In January 2017, 65% of adults favored the idea of “California state and local governments making their own policies and taking actions, separate from the federal government, to protect the legal rights of undocumented immigrants in California.”

California has sued the Trump administration for trying to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Janet Napolitno, University of California president, and six DACA participants have also filed suits against the federal government

A lawsuit by San Francisco and Santa Clara has stymied Attorney General Jeff Sessions's effort to withhold federal funding from entities that have declared their sanctuary status.

“We are at a unique moment in our history when California needs to stand up for its values of inclusion and support for our most vulnerable populations,” stated Advancing Justice-CA Policy Manager Andrew Medina. “Advancing Justice-CA.
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California steps towards becoming a sanctuary state

Assemblymember Rob Bonta speaks on behalf of SB 54. 

THE CALIFORNIA ASSEMBLY today (Sept. 15) approved SB 54 that would make the state a so-called sanctuary state.

SB 54, which Brown is expected to sign, aims to restrict collaboration between local law enforcement and federal agents, but it does allow police to communicate with immigration authorities about people convicted within the past 15 years of hundreds of crimes.

"Today, the Assembly passed the California Values Act, SB 54. In doing so, California can be a light to the nation and world of how policies of inclusion and compassion foster stronger, safer, more prosperous communities," said Assemblymember Rob Bonta, D-Oakland on his Facebook page.

The State Senate approved the bill in April. The Assembly added a host of amendments at the urging of Brown to make it more palatable to California's law enforcement agencies. The Senate is expected to revote on the bill and move  it to the governor's desk.

The legislation is the latest volley in the back-and-forth battle against Donald Trump's campaign pledge to increase deportation efforts. The lawmakers also approved money for legal assistance and college scholarships for undocumented residents and made it more difficult for businesses and government agencies to disclose people's immigration status.

Last week, the state's Attorney General filed a Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for DHS's rescission of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).

California is home to between 2.35 and 2.6 million undocumented immigrants. Nearly a quarter of the nation’s undocumented immigrants reside in California, where they constitute more than 6% of the state’s population. There are about 400,000 undocumented immigrants from Asia.

Nearly one in 10 California workers is an undocumented immigrant, according to the Pew Research Center. The state's labor force includes about 1.75 million undocumented immigrants. This is the second-highest statewide concentration of undocumented workers (9.0%) in the U.S. after Nevada (10.4%). Undocumented immigrants work disproportionately in agriculture, construction, and manufacturing.

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Tramp administration rescinds DAPA program for parents of Dreamers

With the DAPA program ended, families may be separated again as parents are deported.

THE Department of Homeland Security rescinded an Obama administration memo that would have protected the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents program, known as DAPA, and Expanded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (expanded DACA) program.

While DAPA was rescinded, for the time being, it appears the DACA program designed for those young immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as undocumented children will remain in place although the door is still open the administration might review that decision at a later date. Thus, the breaking up of families becomes more likely with parents being deported and children allowed to remain in the U.S.

“Maintaining the DACA program is a critical step to protecting the millions of undocumented youth who have been able to come out of the shadows since the program was first launched in 2012," said Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif and chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific Americans Caucus.

DAPA, had never actually taken effect after being signed in 2014. Courts had blocked it pending further litigation, which has been ongoing. While the program was argued in the courts, deportations in this group were minimal. With the program ended, the parents become vulnerable to deportation.

There are an estimated 1.5 million unauthorized AAPI immigrants in the country, 169,000 of whom are eligible for original or expanded DACA. According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data, however, AAPi enrollment has not been great.

"Like many undocumented communities, undocumented Asians and Pacific Islanders face language access challenges, access to resources such as healthcare, livable wage, and many more," says Anthony Ng, a policy advocate for immigrant rights at the Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Los Angeles legal advocacy group.

"During times where we see policies targeting immigrant communities, undocumented Asians and Pacific Islanders don't necessarily think they may be as vulnerable as someone who crossed the border. Most undocumented Asians and Pacific Islanders come over with some form of visa that expires, they think they are less vulnerable when, in fact, any non-citizen is susceptible to these policies targeting immigrants."

"However, by rescinding DAPA and continuing to build a mass deportation force, the Trump Administration continues to generate fear and anxiety within our immigrant communities," she said.

"The decision is bittersweet, coming on the 5th anniversary of DACA," said the Asian Americans Advancing Justice Asian Americans Advancing Justice (Advancing Justice), an affiliation of five civil rights organizations. 

"Due to the strong advocacy by undocumented youth and their allies, the Administration has not kept its promise to end the DACA program, which provides work authorization for around 800,000 people. We celebrate the continuance of the program as a victory," said the AAAJ statement.

Trump has voiced his anti-immigrant views since the first days of his presidential campaign. In his address to Congress earlier this year, he created VOICE, a new agency to tally the crimes committed by immigrants and attempted to restrict travel from six predomiantly Muslim countries.

In the meantime, AAAJ encourages DACA recipients and DACA-eligible people to know their rights and consult with an attorney or BIA-accredited representative about applying for or renewing their DACA applications.

For a variety of know your rights materials, visit Asian Americans Advancing Justice-LA’s website.

To schedule an appointment for immigration or citizenship related services, contact immrelief@advancingjustice-la.org or call Advancing Justice-LA's toll-free in-language hotline numbers:

• Chinese: (800) 520-2356
• Korean: (800) 867-3640
• Tagalog: (885) 300-2552
• Thai: (800) 914-9583
• Vietnamese: (800) 267-7395
• Khmer: (800) 867-3126
• English: (888) 349-9695

"If this Administration truly cares about immigrant families, they must stop pursuing xenophobic and hateful policies that do not reflect our widely-shared values as a nation," said Chu. "Instead, we must take more substantive steps to ensure that we keep families together and work toward a permanent solution to fix our broken immigration system.”

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