Critics Say Questions About Citizenship Could Wreck Chances for an Accurate Census - Polidicks

[URL="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/02/us/census-citizenship-status-immigrants.html"]Source[/URL] [QUOTE]A request by the Justice Department to ask people about their citizenship status in the 2020 census is stirring a broad backlash from census experts and others who say the move could wreck chances for an accurate count of the population — and, by extension, a fair redistricting of the House and state legislatures next decade. Their fear, echoed by experts in the Census Bureau itself, is that the Trump administration’s hard-line stance on immigration, and especially on undocumented migrants, will lead Latinos and other minorities, fearing prosecution, to ignore a census that tracks citizenship status. Their failure to participate would affect population counts needed not only to apportion legislative seats, but to distribute hundreds of billions of dollars in federal money to areas that most need it. “I can think of no action the administration could take that would be more damaging to the accuracy of the 2020 census than to add a question on citizenship,” Terri Ann Lowenthal, a consultant and leading private expert on census issues, said in an interview. “It would completely pull the rug out from under efforts to have everyone participate in the census as the Constitution envisions.” The government has sought to count everyone living in the United States, legally and otherwise, since the first census in 1790. The decennial census has not asked all respondents whether they were citizens since 1960, although much smaller Census Bureau surveys of the population have continued to include citizenship questions. The Justice Department request, first reported by ProPublica, was made in a Dec. 12 letter that said more detailed information on citizenship was critical to enforcing Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which bans racial discrimination in voting. The number of voting-age citizens is one measure used to determine whether the minority population in a legislative district is sufficient to determine an election, and the department said the results of the American Community Survey, a smaller annual review that covers about 10 percent of the population each decade, were too imprecise to be reliable. Voting rights advocates said, however, that the data from that smaller survey had long been used effectively to enforce the law. They said that adding a citizenship question to the census would not enhance voting rights, but suppress them by reducing the head count of already undercounted minority groups, particularly the fast-growing Hispanic population. “The first effect, of course, is on reapportionment,” Tom Saenz, the president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said in an interview. “And that seems to be the overarching goal — to stop the shifting of representation from non-Latino states to heavily Latino states.” A Justice Department spokesman, Devin M. O’Malley, said in a statement that the Census Bureau hac recognized that results of the American Community Survey are “not the most appropriate data” for use in districting matters. “The Justice Department is committed to free and fair elections for all Americans and has sought reinstatement of the citizenship question on the census to fulfill that commitment,” he said. [/QUOTE]

This is an interesting twist on the voter suppression that I knew that the Trump administration was going to start attempting.

The chances of us getting an accurate Census pretty much depend on a successful Blue Midterm and Trump, Pence, Ryan, etc getting impeached.

Why apply hundreds of years of social science, experience and statistics when we can know better anyways, amiright?

It's actually an interesting question to ask, even as a lefty. Trying to be unbiased here. Undocumented residents are counted in the census and thus counted in the distribution of the House of Representatives (and therefore the Electoral College). They can't vote, but they are used to add more magnitude to the voices of those in the state who are allowed to vote. This is eerily similar to the original purpose of the Electoral College, which was allowing slave states' voters to vote with their power bolstered through the powerless population of slaves being counted as 3/5 people for the purposes of House seat distribution. Of course, while some would use this as a reason to conclude even more forcefully that we need to get them illegals out and build the wall, I see it the other way. We need to give a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants so that they can vote and no longer be voting power tokens with no agency.

Isn't the Census the count of how many citizens we have?

[QUOTE=Glaber;53031692]Isn't the Census the count of how many citizens we have?[/QUOTE] It's a lot more than just a count. It goes into demographics and several other areas. How have you never filled one out

[QUOTE=cis.joshb;53031686]It's actually an interesting question to ask, even as a lefty. Trying to be unbiased here. Undocumented residents are counted in the census and thus counted in the distribution of the House of Representatives (and therefore the Electoral College). They can't vote, but they are used to add more magnitude to the voices of those in the state who are allowed to vote. This is eerily similar to the original purpose of the Electoral College, which was allowing slave states' voters to vote with their power bolstered through the powerless population of slaves being counted as 3/5 people for the purposes of House seat distribution. Of course, while some would use this as a reason to conclude even more forcefully that we need to get them illegals out and build the wall, I see it the other way. We need to give a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants so that they can vote and no longer be voting power tokens with no agency.[/QUOTE] Representation is universal regardless of citizenship. Our laws and rights aren't granted to just citizens either, everybody in the US is protected. The census is just a count of who and what demographics are where, it is how our democracy recognizes where to send resources, and it affects not just representation but litterally every federal program out there

[QUOTE=Glaber;53031692]Isn't the Census the count of how many citizens we have?[/QUOTE] It's a count of how many people live in the country.

[QUOTE=Sableye;53031703]Representation is universal regardless of citizenship. Our laws and rights aren't granted to just citizens either, everybody in the US is protected. The census is just a count of who and what demographics are where, it is how our democracy recognizes where to send resources, and it affects not just representation but litterally every federal program out there[/QUOTE] Hardly represented if you don't get to choose your representative.

[QUOTE=Sableye;53031639]Why apply hundreds of years of social science, experience and statistics when we can know better anyways, amiright?[/QUOTE] Science is just fake news anyways. We gotta get some alternative facts in here to fix the issue. [QUOTE=Glaber;53031692]Isn't the Census the count of how many citizens we have?[/QUOTE] No, it's a count of how many people live in the country. Why would it merely be a count of citizens when so many people live here permanently or semi-permanently when they're not citizens. (And this doesn't just count illegal immigrants either. Those on visas or in the process of gaining citizenship wouldn't count as citizens.)

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;53031700]It's a lot more than just a count. It goes into demographics and several other areas. How have you never filled one out[/QUOTE] Are you a citizen: Yes. Well that's done then.

[QUOTE=megafat;53031922]Are you a citizen: Yes. Well that's done then.[/QUOTE] That's kinda missing the point of this article though. A census is a gauge of how many people live in a country. Not how many citizens there are. Asking a question like that when the census does require some personal information (address, for example) is going to completely undermine the point of a census because no illegals will refrain from participating and even many of those who aren't illegal immigrants but aren't citizens would be reluctant to take part in case there's some error somewhere along the way that gets them flagged as illegal too.

"Our census turned up that there are no more of the ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS the softhearted Obama let in. They all got deported by our honorable men and women at ICE. #MAGA #MostSucessfulPresident #SmartAndStable" -Donald Trump after the census where no-one was dumb enough to say they're in the US illegally.

[QUOTE=cis.joshb;53031798]Hardly represented if you don't get to choose your representative.[/QUOTE] Thats not the ppint, your representative is there for you regardless of your status here.

I don't see the problem. A census is there to gather information on the population as a whole. Citizenship is part of that information.

[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;53032539]I don't see the problem. A census is there to gather information on the population as a whole. Citizenship is part of that information.[/QUOTE] "I'm with the government and I'd like to ask you about your citizenship." Ya that's going to go down with folks who live in fear of being deported every day

[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;53032539]I don't see the problem. A census is there to gather information on the population as a whole. Citizenship is part of that information.[/QUOTE] Right, because non-citizen residents are going to put that they are non-citizens on an official government document under the Trump administration. If you want accurate data, which is critical for population-based policy decisions, you can't have people [I]scared[/I] to provide that data. This would fundamentally fuck over a critical administrative function of our own government just to stick it to immigrants. That hurts us a hell of a lot more than it hurts them. It's pointlessly self destructive.

At this rate, Gerrymandering will favor Republicans for the next half a century.

[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;53032987]Right, because non-citizen residents are going to put that they are non-citizens on an official government document under the Trump administration. If you want accurate data, which is critical for population-based policy decisions, you can't have people [I]scared[/I] to provide that data. This would fundamentally fuck over a critical administrative function of our own government just to stick it to immigrants. That hurts us a hell of a lot more than it hurts them. It's pointlessly self destructive.[/QUOTE] At least where I live, they already have to essentially do that when using lots of public services, like having their kids in school.