If you have to drink a cup of coffee to kill your apathy then fire up the coffee pot and vote.
11
Why would anyone not want to answer that question? Why are the fifth columnist liberals objecting to a perfectly proper question on a national census?
It was the author who started with the accusations of nefarious intent, so it's fair game to accuse her ilk of being fifth columnists.
25
"We fought a civil war over this concept!"
As citizens, we should be appalled by the truculent resistors to EVERYONE'S right of equality. The addition of a citizenship question is an obvious prelude to the requisite furor they seek - when the result is published.
The governance of DJ Trump and Republican-led Congress REJECTS: "..lawmakers (are) to represent every single person in their district, not just certain people or fractions of people."
In March 1986, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Senator Strom Thurmond REFUSED to enter Coretta Scott King's letter into the congressional record.
"King’s letter accused Sessions of abusing his authority while investigating voter fraud allegations two years earlier as a federal prosecutor in Alabama, stating in part:
In initiating the case, Mr. Sessions ignored allegations of similar behaviors by whites, choosing instead to chill the exercise of the franchise by blacks because of his misguided investigation. In fact, Mr. Sessions sought to punish older black civil rights activists, advisors, and colleagues of my husband, who had been key figures in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. These were persons who, realizing the potential of the absentee vote among Blacks, had learned to use the process within the bounds of legality and had taught others to do the same. Their only sin the committed was being too successful in gaining votes."
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/coretta-scott-king-criticize-jeff-sess...
5
Everyone living in the USA ought to be counted. I see nothing wrong with asking whether they are citizens or not. It is useful information and doesn't infringe on anybody's rights. I would like to know how many non citizens live in my country and it doesn't make me automatically a racist.
33
This is a most frighting power grab tactic I have seen in my lifetime in America. If we survive this administration with any sense of humanity left it will be a miracle. This policy labeling humans as not deserving to be counted leads only to violence and justifiable cruelty by this government and its zealots, and this is what Trump and his Republicans would knowingly do.
10
The fear is a person who is here illegally as a non-citizen will be targeted by ICE and deported. If the census results individually are not to be used for 70 years that would not be a problem. I personally don't trust that by this administration. So remove the question!
9
The damage to an accurate population count has already been done even if the citizenship question is excluded.
7
"And there’s only one constitutional purpose for the census, which is to allocate seats in the House of Representatives and to determine Electoral College votes."
So, there should be only one question from the census taker: "How many people live here?". There should be no questions about your identity, age, race, marital status or anything else, yet there plenty of questions that invades one's privacy on the census form. If the only purpose of the census is to take an accurate head count to apportion seats in the House of Representatives, there should truly be only one question.
28
Will "Originalist" Justices of the Supreme Court look to the words of the Constitution or the Founding Fathers, as they assert they do, to find the proposed Census question to be unconstitutional because the Constitution requires that every "person" be counted for purposes of the census?? The gymnastics required to so torture the meaning of Constitution would be on a par with their Citizens United rationale
.
11
It is interesting that the author's statements conflict with each other. On the one hand the author tells us the states already have access to the citizenship information from the American Community Survey. If that is the case then any additional exposure represented by the citizenship question in the census is non existent. Further, there are already several classes of people recognized in the US. Citizens who are allowed by law to vote, permanent or otherwise legal residents who are not allowed to vote, illegal residents who are not allowed to vote, and visitors who are not allowed to vote. Since the drawing of district lines is part of the voting process it would seem reasonable that the process only include those eligible to vote. There is a fundamental conflict of interest for my representatives to be advocating for benefits on behalf of citizens of other nations over benefits that should accrue to me, my family, and my community (those who are here legally). I guess it isn't surprising that Blumenthal, Murphy, and Himes don't understand that.
27
I am a native-born American citizen (my ancestral roots in this country go back 11 generations). If the citizenship question is included in the census, I plan to protest by simply not answering the question at all. I would strongly recommend that everyone, be they citizens or no, adopt the same policy. Nothing is to be lost by doing so, and if enough people who are citizens do the same, the information will be useless to the nativists without impairing the accuracy of the census.
15
"Administration officials have claimed, in public and before Congress, that the Justice Department needs the question answered in order to properly enforce the Voting Rights Act."
That's crap. The Census data is SUPPOSED TO BE CONFIDENTIAL, I believe by LAW, as are all of the household or business surveys conducted. This means that the DOJ could not use that information to 'enforce the voting rights act', unless, they violated the confidentiality of the survey, and that currently is ILLEGAL. Moreover, if they tried to do this, those in the civil service would most likely not comply and take the DOJ and Census Bureau to court.
As the article states, the purpose is to attempt to argue that those who are not citizens should not count in representation, and take that to THEIR supreme court, as well as scare many, whether here illegally or not, into not participating, which would undercount jurisdictions with the most immigrants, legal or not, and lower their representation (presumed democrat) in congress. That said, not filling out and returning a census form, I believe, results in someone coming by to force the resident to fill it out.
9
Proposed script for 2020 census takers:
'We're from the Trump administration, and we're here to help you. Please sign our ledger indicating the citizenship status of everyone in your household.'
3
So next week, the census will demand to know your religion. After all, after the Trump Administration has enacted its own version of the Nuremberg Laws, by executive fiat, Muslims and Jews living here will not be ‘citizens,’ so we’ve got to be able to identify and count them, don’t we?
I mean, what’s wrong with that? Nobody could misuse that information, could they?
We lost millions of lives defeating fascism in the 20th century. Now we’re the vanguard of fascism in the 21st century... unless we turn back, and soon.
11
This reminded me of some Southern state teaching applications I received in the late 1970s. They wanted a photo be included. Your racial identity was known, even though they couldn't legally ask.
We can surmise Trump dislikes Blue states like California and New York who have large minority populations. What better way to get even than to try to decrease such states' population counts?
7
If we are not allowed to know whether they are Citizens, how can the CIA know whether they can spy on them?
7
So much for nation states. So last century. Let people roam where ever they choose, right? That'll turn out really well.
17
Of course, the demand for declaration of citizenship on the census is an intimidation device. The Republicans want urban residents to be undercounted. The idea that the census would be confidential is not believed by non-citizens. When ICE shows up at courthouses, drags people out of their cars for routine traffic stops and hunts innocent citizens down in their own homes like the Gestapo, what are they to believe?
There is a subtle Trimpian cast to this as well---as if government services were only for "citizens" and not residents--legal residents. Even the countries with the most stringent limitations on full citizenship provide government services to their residents. The Trump administration is sending a dog whistle to its base, implying that if the census can document "real" citizens as opposed to "mere residents" the U.S. government will be able to curtail directing resources to "those people"--it is, of course, racist, just like every other political message spewed forth from the White House.
8
It is all about limiting access to the voting booth.
8
@DC And the Democratic party machine, of which the NYT is a charter member, knows it is all about opening up access to those who shouldn't be voting.
11
Seems to me that if you decide to live in ANY country illegally, that by making that decision, you understand that you will forgo certain rights and privileges afforded to the citizens of that country - by virtue of your decision to live in the country illegally! For the life of me I do not understand this debate.
31
Its stunning to see the reflexive, irrational fear, reflected here in both the editorial and the comments, reflected in the reaction to a simple, and certainly justifiable question: "Are you a Citizen"? The readers don't react with such fear from questions such as: what is your race, gender, religion? What is your ethnic origins? In the same way you claim those asking this question betrays some nefarious intent, your reaction betrays the opposite extreme. Our government, the People, have every right to ask the question and demand it be answered. "Nam et ipsa scientia potestus est"
23
We need to know just how many AMERICANS live in our country. THAT'S ALL that counts!
16
@Nreb You realize, don't you, that that would include everyone from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, etc. all the way down to the southern tip of Chile, whether they were here legally or not, because they are all AMERICANS. Some from South America, some from Central America, and some from North America.
7
I find nothing objectionable to (a) knowing who is part of our civil community as a citizen and who is not and (b) counting citizens alone in the census. The census apportions political power and benefits that should accrue to those who have a right to call this land home: why is it a problem to demand that?
18
@JOHN The article explains why it is a problem: it leads to the disenfranchisement of certain groups the government deems have no right to call this land home. I, personally, do not want the government to determine who does and doesn't have a right to call this land home. Our government-and other governments-have done a terrible job of that in the past.
7
So the government can determine whether there are 12 million or as many as 20 million illegal immigrant criminals in this alleged "developed" rule of law nation? That really does make a difference! The fact that our nation that put a man on the moon half a century ago doesn't know this and mysteriously can't enforce its immigration laws makes us the laughing stock of the world! Its moronic that a nation in which the government can record all our e mails and telephone calls does not have a clue as to how many illegal potential 9/11 bombers are crawling around in the shadows. At the very least the government needs determine how many 10 thousand dollar a year per student 'in poverty' education vouchers to send to its California (with its 4 million illegals) so that local towns and cities don't go bankrupt trying to educate millions of children whose slave wage immigrant parent don't make enough money to pay taxes to defray the 10's of thousands of dollars a year they receive in "free" public education plus food stamps, housing assistance, free medical care!
16
@winthrop staples The best way to determine how many illegals are here is to insure that everyone here is counted.
Subtract the number of citizens, which is determined by birth certificates and naturalization records, and subtract the number of green card and visa holders.
Those records are all in the government’s hands.
Doing it as proposed by the trump administration guarantees a bad result.
18
The appropriate response may be to detach the citizenship question from the full census. As Ms. Gupta suggests, the follow-up annual Census surveys of 2.5% of households can
gather that information with a minimum of respondent fear and political mischief.
4
Trump is looking to gerrymander the system at the federal level across all states. The citizenship question should not be included in the census. While we're at it lets take a look at abolishing the Electoral College. Had there been no Electoral College in the last election we would not be suffering under Trump now.
5
Whether people living in the U.S. are U.S. citizens or not is not "random information" or a fishing expedition. It is important to know many people are citizens. When results of what percentage of people voted - how do we know that unless we know how many were actually eligible to vote? There are no salient reasons for not stating whether or not you are a citizen of the country conducting a census of the people in that country.
21
@2observe2b You cannot vote unless you are registered to vote. Period. The fallacy of great numbers of people voting illegally has been disproven over and over. Voter fraud occurs at extremely low rates. The citizenship question has nothing to do with voting rights or voter fraud. It is another attempt to scare immigrants and diminish the political power of minority community members.
7
You answered your own objection. it's a census of people, not a census of citizens. noncitizens are people, garbage pile-in-chief notwithstanding.
The question serves no function but to deter non citizens from allowing themselves to be counted in the census for fear of being targeted by other parts of the government.
But why stop at census questions? maybe non citizens should have to wear a yellow star on their clothing so election monitors know to stop them at the polls. that'd improve the integrity of our elections, right? and improving integrity of our elections is very important, right? that's why we're doing something about consistent warnings from the intelligence community about Russian interference? right? RIGHT?
8
IF the only purpose of the census is to allocate Congressional seats why does it gather so much other information?
11
Excellent Intro!
Did I miss what we can do?
5
If The Contitution says count them ALL, then count them all.
How else will the Congress represent “the people”...oh excuse me, the is the Congress of Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan..what was I thinking???!
3
The United States has become a country of lying, cheating and stealing. What are we going to do about it? No more whining and excuses, VOTE!
6
The citizenship question is just the first step towards a larger goal of trying to establish a 'Nation State' very similar to what this administration is helping Europe and Israel achieve.
There are many countries in the EU who are moving towards a right leaning regime very similar to what have happened in Europe in the 1930s.
Our current Administration believes in purity of races, the White supremacist agenda of yester years.
Our history is full of improper/illegal use of information collected by various agencies for a specific purpose and then diverted for another. Once the information is collected, in today’s technology you cannot and I repeat you cannot delete it if it is being used for some nefarious purposes.
This administration has been on record for recommending major changes in current immigration laws such as eliminating what they call chain migration on the pretext that it allows people who are not qualified to come to US. Just to make a point that in my family alone the chain migration resulted in additional 6 MD’s, a couple of Ph.D.’s, 4 Attorneys just in the 2nd generation alone. The whole idea of this Administration and the Republicans is to try to keep America as White America and not the America we love and would die for.
In the sub-continent we have an idiom, “ Gurba Kushtan Roz-e-Awwal” (nip in the bud) get rid of this question now before it is too late and requires extreme measures.
6
@Wizarat, is the world not currently divided up into approximately 190 + or - nation states?
"Chain migration" has been a politically neutral term mostly used by academics and demographers since roughly the 1960's. In the 1990's, as leader of President Clinton's Bipartisan Commission on Immigration Reform, African-American, Democratic Congresswoman and civil rights icon Barbara Jordan recommended chain migration reform (including elimination of several chain migration categories in favor of greater emphasis on skills and merit categories, a la Canada). The term "chain migration" has only taken on a negative political connotation after Trump's election, when the Trump administration began to express support for most of the same policies recommended by Barbara Jordan.
8
This is pretty simple stuff. My Equal Protection Rights are being severely broken when California, New York and other states with massive #'s of illegal aliens are allowed to count them for Congressional Apportionment and Electoral Votes.
I'm really surprised this hasn't been put in front of the SCOTUS yet, but now that it's on the ballot and progressives are willing to sue...it means it might get fasttracked to the Supreme Court. Where...in case public school math failed you...it's not likely to end well for Progressives.
There is absolutely not a sane person in the country who thinks CA, NY and IL should have MORE poltiical power because they're a safe haven for illegals than other states.
This is cheating democracy in the worst way imaginable...putting your own residents at risk from MS-13 and other illegal activiites from people hiding in the shadows....just so you can have 5 more House members from NY vs. giving them up to VA, FL, TX, CO and MN.
24
@Erica Smythe. 1. The constitution expressly requires a count of all persons irrespective of citizenship.
2. The government has conclusive records on citizenship, via birth records and naturalization records.
3. Texas has the highest percentage of illegal immigrants of all states.
4. MS-13 began in the US, and criminal gangs will flourish if people are afraid to go to the authorities with their legal issues and have to resort to their “godfathers” to rectify what they claim to be injustices. Meanwhile, on the planet where lying presidents do not gin up bigotry by equating immigration and crime, it’s pretty clear that immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than native born Americans.
13
@Erica Smythe
But your rights are not severely broken when California's almost 40 million inhabitants are represented by just two senators, the same as Minnesota's roughly 5.6 million!
4
Seriously? You’re saying that a country has no right to find out how many of its residents are citizens? What an upside down politically correct world!
30
When Trump wins again in 2020, pieces in the NYT like this one, and Sean "#AbolishIce" McElwee's will be the reason why.
18
"We’ve had a lot of people ask if they should boycott the census. First of all, filling out the census is required by law."
Are you still using that chestnut? Are your readers ignorant of laws requiring Jews to wear the Star of David? Or laws requiring Japanese-Americans being placed in concentration camps, or laws prohibiting helping slaves escape or helping illegal immigrants avoid the racist ICE?
If we can ignore all these and all other evilisms of government, we can pretend that it is legitimate. This editorial presents compelling arguments for the pretenders.
But, what about the rest of us?
Some assure us that government is going to keep confidential information confidential. However, government is not known for keeping secrets, whether it's leaks providing the stock in trade of Washington journalists, or the evil Manhattan Project, the Pentagon Papers, the Bush War Against Iraq documents, the Edward Snowden information -- this editorial is for the pretenders only.
Disregarding the census is morally required, avoiding giving aid and comfort to an illegitimate organization that harms innocent people.
4
It was Obama who officially removed the citizenship question from the census count. Look it up.
8
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus
How about you provide the proof of what you say as one is supposed to do instead?
1
@magicisnotreal
Whadda you mean I'm supposed to do it? If I did the evidence would be tainted, biased, cited from a partisan source, not believeable, etc.
It's not that difficult to "trust but verify". Some people refer to that as due diligence.
It's also a rhetorical technique. If you look it up yourself it's difficult for you deny your own efforts.
If you don't believe me, look it up. I already have.
1
I never hear about non-Hispanic whites being deported. In fact as I recall it Brits, Irish and Aussies pretty much get a free pass to illegally stay here even if they are known wanted terrorists!
What I am about to say probably makes the GOP appeal to tribalism an even worse ploy than it would be if it were organic. This fake concern about Citizenship, about illegals, and about how black people should shut up and be grateful, and all the things the GOP has their people whipped up into a pregnant with violence state for, is just to hold on to seats. In my life I have never met enough republicans to justify the numbers of them in office. I have heard it mentioned on the news many times that the numbers of them holding office cannot possibly be justified by the numbers of them in the population.
So It is right to be concerned about what they are up to on the individual level of who is getting targeted and hurt but I think we already know what the larger game is and we have to focus on it. To root out whatever corruption they have injected into our system to be able to hold so much authority beyond the numbers of them in the population.
I have a theory that the real purpose for them embracing El Trumpo is to spread the distrust of the media we have seen so that when someone finally realizes what they have done and starts pointing it out, they can counter it with "fake news".
Every repub I have known had nothing but contempt for anyone who disagreed.
4
This debate is just plain silly. For years, the NYT and other establishments have repeatedly told us there are anywhere from 11 million to 25 million illegal aliens living in this country. What we really want to know is how many U.S. citizens reside in this country.
25
@Pvbeachbum. We know that number. Our governments have conclusive records on citizens.
4
Understandable that proponents of maintaining white Christian supremecy would want to deprive everyone else of representation, but isn’t the Steve Bannon wing of the Party concerned that heavily immigrant Red states like Texas and Arizona will lose seats in the House if “those people” aren’t counted?
3
FYI Republicans who forget their history.
"But it is true our borders are out of control. It is also true that this has been a situation on our borders back through a number of administrations. And I supported this bill. I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and who have lived here even though some time back they may have entered illegally."
From Ronald Reagan's speech 1984.
2
Good news is power will shift away from illegal immigrant friendly states that harbor them to states with people who actually have US citizens in them. We know California will get hurt but that is their own problem.
16
“This isn’t the first time that nativists have sought to have a citizenship question included in the census.”
This is a very misleading statement.
Why doesn’t this editorial mention that the citizenship question has been asked in previous questionaires?
15
The citizenship question is not some evil stratagem dreamed up by Steve Bannon and Kris Kobach. It was first was added to the U.S. census in 1820, when census takers enumerated the “number of foreigners not naturalized.” The citizenship question was asked on most censuses forms until 1950, when it was eliminated because respondents complained the census forms had grown too long. However, the citizenship question reappeared on the census long from in 2000. But the long form was discontinued after the 2000 census and replaced with the annual American Community Survey, which includes the citizenship question. (The ACS –not the decennial census—is now used to allocate federal funds.) The census with the citizenship added would continue to count all residents as required by the Constitution, but would enumerate the number of citizens in each household. Asking the citizenship question would not distinguish undocumented immigrants from foreign nationals residing legally in the country.
The Census Bureau explains the rationale for asking the citizenship questions on its website at https://www.census.gov/acs/www/about/why-we-ask-each-question/citizenship/
21
The ratiknale for the inclusion of that question on the census may not have as much to do with an anti-immigrant bias as the usual, pitiful Republican gameplaying with all the rules, trying to rig the game as much as possible against the fact that most people outside the Confederate South don’t like Republicans and don’t want to vote for them. They will use this data to try to shuffle around electoral votes to give more to red states and less to blue states like California.The fewer people vote the better for Republicans. That’s a pretty pathetic legacy.
3
Some of the questions about origin are difficult, if not silly. Do we all know with certainty if we're black or white? How many of us know where all our ancestors are from? Should we write -- in teeny, tiny letters in that little box -- every nationally that is in our blood? (Or just the one we like best?)
Other questions are a bit goofy, too. Jobs, come to mind. (I'm usually in between them.) And the value of one's house and land (I haven't a clue.) I'm wondering if I'll be allowed to just skip what I cant/hate to answer.
4
The reasons against putting a citizenship question on the census form are not persuasive. You fail to mention that this question has been on numerous census questionnaires until the 1950's. You also express concerns about how the data might be used in elections. But the census asked detailed & personal questions about our lives and a lot of it can be used in elections in addition to answering a simple question about whether you are a citizen. If this is a random "fishing expedition," why has it continued for so long?
You next claim that there is something nefarious about the motive of the people behind the question. If the question itself is proper (as it was for 150 years) what is the relevancy behind their motives?
It is true that the original mandate behind the census was to count all "persons," and this will still be done. The census has evolved into acquiring data regarding many things, not just citizenship. Your biased contributor obviously does not want a question regarding citizenship since he may believe that it will be easier for the government to enforce our immigration laws if that question is used. If this is not the case, why not have the question presented? There is still a differentiation of rights between citizens and non-citizens.
The fear of apprehension by the government over undocumented (illegal) immigrants who will not participate is purely speculative at this point. There are many reasons why illegal immigrants may not participate.
14
Even the issue of citizenship itself is a ruse; this is really a war of the rich (read: powerful) vs the rest of the inhabitants of the United States. Immigrants are valuable to these privileged people only inasmuch as they are underpaid, un-benefitted, bottom-line-saving laborers, but when they want to participate in the political processes that determine the real quality of their lives, they become a feared, loathed and threatening "horde amassing at our border wall."
4
so what can ordinary people do now? That did not get answered -- at all. Left an open question.
4
If this question appears on my census form I will not answer it. Just leave it blank.
1
Will someone from all those people who want
"Open Borders"
please explain how that would help the
Poor American Citizens ?
I don't see how their condition can improve if there
are always un-documented immigrants willing to
take their minimum wage jobs, compete for housing,
and County medical care.
14
AS you write, "...when this country was established, the constitutional requirement was to count each and every person...." Back then, we didn't have millions of illegal aliens in our country, nor millions more refugees who were given sanctuary. As a citizen of the United States, I absolutely do not want any non-citizen to be counted in the census for the sole puprose of giving those "sanctuary" states more federal seats of power.
12
There is no statement made by trump and his administration that can be trusted. You can be sure that the information collected by the census will be twisted to fit their corrupt narrative.
2
Unauthorized immigrants have no reason to fear honestly answering the citizenship question on the 2020 Census form. The U.S. government will not release personally identifiable information about an individual to any other individual or agency until 72 years after it was collected for the decennial census. This "72-Year Rule" (92 Stat. 915; Public Law 95-416; October 5, 1978) restricts access to decennial census records to all but the individual named on the record or their legal heir. The most recent census publicly available is the 1940 Census. ICE would not have access to the 2020 Census until 2092. A 72-year-old census form would be useless in 2092 as a tool for rounding up and deporting unauthorized immigrants.
https://www.census.gov/history/www/genealogy/decennial_census_records/th...
10
"This evidence also highlights the extent to which it appears that Secretary Ross misled Congress in attesting numerous times to this voting-rights enforcement rationale. "
Ross did not mislead Congress, he lied to them. I understand there are some cases where officials provide inaccurate information in which it is not clear they knew it was inaccurate. This is not one of those cases. Ross himself wrote the email to the DOJ requesting the question and the rationale to appear to originate in the DOJ. A lie is knowingly providing false information and Ross certainly knew he had sent the email and then he lied about the origin of the question to Congress, which is a felony. I understand the Times and its contributors are hesitant to call someone a liar, but the evidence here clearly shows Ross was lying. Stop tiptoeing around. Call this what it was, a lie.
2
Buried in this article, as in so many others about the Trump Administration, is a reference to the "Chief Political Liaison to the White House" implanted in the Department of Commerce. That's just a new, Trumpian term for Lenin's and Stalin's "Political Commissars" who enforced absolute ideological purity. Freed from even the pretext of "advice and consent" of the Senate, these officially mid-level staffers hold absolute sway over their dominions. Their job is enforce political doctrine. Doing one's job well means nothing in their analysis of how an organization and its leaders are doing, nor does following the law or even upholding the Constitution. Only absolute slavish loyalty to Trump matters.
This is yet another reason why so many people are scratching their heads and wondering how we got here.
3
The Trump Administration, the Koch Brothers, the American Legislative Exchange Council and other right-wing organizations are making a concerted effort to install the rules of white supremacy in state and federal law ahead of the coming browning of the population. They use state legislatures and office holders to challenge the current understanding of due process and equal protection.
This census question is but one example of dividing the population to favor the right.
Until Trump, the effort was sub rosa. But now, with the blessing of the White House, the racists can march down the street with torches. Very fine people.
4
"The involvement of people like Steve Bannon and Kris Kobach — the Kansas secretary of state, who is a leading proponent of the idea that voter fraud by noncitizens is rampant — says everything you need to know about what the real rationale for the question was. "
By this reasoning, voter fraud doesn't exist because people you dislike think it does.
The states with the most immigrants and most illegals (looking at you, California) are the ones making it hardest to determine if there actually is voter fraud.
And whether the administration ignored the scientific advantage of a citizenship question is irrelevant as to whether an advantage actually does exist.
One real issue is how the data can be used, and whether such use would be legal or constitutional. Vanita Gupta assumes that such use would not be.
The other issue that seems to get more traction is whether the question would cause people not to respond and thus affect redistricting. The way the census operates, the same undercounting that we've always had (people without fixed addresses) is unlikely to change.
In the meantime, this issue will likely be decided by SCOTUS, and "fighting hard" by the NYT is unlikely to matter much.
10
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.
Here's the original text.
Not a word about citizenship.
Free persons, even indentured servants,
Except Indians....I guess a case could be made that people from central America could be excluded because they have a lot of Indian ancestry; but many of them also have European ancestry; maybe a DNA test at the border to see if they have a qualifying amount of European blood.
"other Persons" Slaves, count 3/5ths.
Seems unconstitutional to me; even if you throw away the 14th amendment.
What about just not answering the citizenship question and making a statement on the form as to why...? Explain it is not pertinent to the intent of the Census.
1
I don't see a Constitutional requirement for all of the information gathering in a census of the population. If the census is designed to count the number of people in the country to determine the allocation of representatives, it seems to me that this could be done with just one simple question: "Are you a living human being who resides at this address?"
It would make for a much shorter and more economical process.
2
I am a naturalized Citizen, the model immigrant with American born children who are very accomplished on their own steam. For every job application there is a box to tick off - Citizen or green card holder. Did'nt think much of it until now. My American Passport allowed me entry into any country I visited easily without questions. The American Passport itself was a confirmation of my integrity, honesty. But I'm not sure anymore. If your own country can detain you and question you before you can enter your own country, foreign countries will follow too. Now it gives me great pause before I travel. Who likes to be detained, questioned, body searched in front of other fellow Americans? Did I mention I am brown and am not wearing my hospital badge as......M.D.?
79
@NNI well I am white and have traveled. There have been times when I have come back into the country and I have drawn the short straw for scrutiny. I didn't like it either but I did have faith that at the end of the process, as a US citizen, who hadn't violated any laws, I would eventually make it through.
By the way, I have experienced the same scrutiny on visits to Taiwan, China, and England. I assume in each case it was random.
7
It's disheartening how many people think Democrats are "left" or "far left". Compared to those who have marched over the right-wing extremist cliff, I suppose they are. Compared to the slightest knowledge of political or intellectual history or European or global standards of politics, not a chance. The ignorance is depressing.
I leave aside those who think "the far left" wants noncitizens to vote for President. As if there were any far left here, aside from a thousand or two.
Those who want us not to know how many people live in the U.S. are also rather disheartening. Need I say how important it is for public health (to name one) or our economy (two) or human decency (not on the scale for some) to have adequate funding for the proper care of the whole population? Disease is no respecter of "legality" and neither is the labor supply, never mind human decency.
6
Put this on the census, or not. We can work this out, squabbling as it were, in the usual fashion. What we do not need is for either Left or Right to promote a Constitutional Convention in a misguided effort to make the Republic better. Please beware of any and all who come calling for such a Radical fix. The Founders, whatever their shortcomings, were far more coherent on matters of establishing government.
2
This question seems a little crazy because how do you prove someone is telling you the truth. The purpose of the census was never to prove who was a citizen but rather who was in the country. If they want to know who is a citizen there are better ways do accomplish that. There are so many different visas, naturalization certs etc. how is someone to know which status the form is including. With the fear among non-white groups running at an all time high with this administrations fear mongering I'll be surprised if even citizens want to take the census.
6
Reading the comments here, I fully expect Trump to win another term as the progressive arm of the Democratic Party spins the party further and further from common sense. As a registered Democrat and someone who's literally never cast a single vote for an (R), I find this question reasonable.
Now of course it's politically motivated theatre by the Trump administration, and it could potentially weaken the strength of Blue states and cities, but that doesn't make it inherently wrong. In fact outside liberal coastal bubbles, it makes sense that we shouldn't further reward folks who don't respect our borders and laws by attributing extra government resources and representation to the parts of the country that welcome and encourage disrespect of our sovereign national borders.
Furthermore as some have pointed out there is the issue of taxation without representation. However, most illegal immigrants do not file tax returns as you need a social security number to do so. Common sense also says that if you're afraid to fill out the census, you probably aren't filling out a tax return either...
Those who do file tax returns are using a stolen identity to do so (which is a crime). And if you aren't filling out a tax return, you aren't paying federal taxes (sales tax is state and local). Therefore, it robs tax payers of fair representation to count a population group that routinely doesn't pay taxes to the federal government.
11
@JP
>>> ". . . And if you aren't filling out a tax return, you aren't paying federal taxes . . ."
Wrong. If you receive paychecks, federal and state taxes, Social Security contributions, etc. are deducted from your income.
If you receive paychecks, work for low wages and don't file tax returns, you are likely paying *more* taxes than required.
2
For those of you eager to defend the question with the 72 year rule, I would caution us all. Worst case, the government decides it needs to break this rule in whole or in part for "national security" or what have you. Moreover, would it not be possible to stratify the results by census district for the purposes of targeting ICE resources or base stirring propaganda? If, say, districts around Huston, TX or San Francisco, CA or NY, NY had a higher proportion of non-citizens to citizens, could it not be used in campaigning, voter rights disputes, Voter ID practices that discriminate, etc? Would 'redistricting' be influenced by how such districts are coalesced into voting representations? No, I have to align with this author. The question is meaningless in light of the constitutional demand for the census and its legitimate uses. It can only lead to no good, and no good would definitely follow in this environment.
4
Can someone more knowledgeable than I please let us know what the consequences are, if any, for refusing to check the citizenry box on the 2020 Census? Would that mean that you and/or your household would not be counted? What if everyone who understands the true reasons behind being asked that question were to refuse to answer it?
1
@Barbara Harman
Willful failure to answer a question is punishable by a $100 fine. Deliberately providing a false answer could result in a $500 fine.
13 U.S. Code § 221
1
My status as a citizen or not doesn't mean I'm not worthy of representation in Congress. It does not mean I do not use local services. It does not indicate whether or not I have an illness, children, elderly parents, or my economic status. If there is supposed to be a decennial count of every person in the United States and it's not specified that those people must be citizens, asking this question is irrelevant particularly when there are so many other ways to learn my status.
What kind of country are we when we support blatant discrimination towards people who are not citizens by suggesting that they not be included in our census? They are living here. They are human beings. Some of them, especially those who are refugees, have been traumatized by government in their home country. Do we really want to be another persecutory country?
The census is not about citizenship. It's about how many people live where in this country, redrawing lines in congressional districts, making sure that funds are given out as needed, and attempting to get a snapshot of our country's population. Given the current racism and anti-immigrant sentiment in America I doubt that a citizenship question will be answered. Logic suggests that it's more important to know how many people are living here now. Then again, logic is not a strong point when one is looking for reasons to hate.
7
@hen3ry
Yup! People live in America, regardless of their status on paper. Counting them means we maintain adequate resources, based on the true size of the population. But we politicize everything and the population loses out every time.
The vast majority of advanced nations have a civil service that is apolitical and many of the questions we ask ourselves almost constantly are never an issue for them. We keep spinning our wheels and reinvent it every time there is a radical change agent in power. That's not a stable way to maintain a society.
4
The Census is a Constitutional question of the total number of human beings in the United States. Questions about citizenship, ethnicity, family history of disease, or anything else are matters for other surveys and the legislation that creates them, but the Census is a full count of all individuals. Period.
I don't see what's so hard to understand about the distinction between the two.
6
The real reason that the editorial board objects to the citizenship question is that an undercount of unauthorized immigrants would produce a lower head count in areas with large numbers of illegal immigrants, which would reduce Democratic representation when new state and congressional districts are drawn in 2021. Even worse, states might opt to count only U.S. citizens when drawing state and congressional voting districts on grounds only citizens can vote. So the real question is whether unauthorized immigrants and foreign nationals residing legally in the United States deserve equal representation with U.S. citizens in the Electoral College, the U.S. House of Representatives, and state legislatures. U.S. citizens have filed lawsuits in some states alleging that counting illegal immigrants and foreign nationals who can’t vote in allotting proportional representation violate the one-person/one vote rule.
17
Recently, the never-ending conversation about immigration came up among some of my friends and foreign colleagues (many of whom are here on business visas). The Americans, of course, droned-on about the need to protect our borders and keep all those "illegals" out.
Just for fun, I asked the Americans if they could prove, right there on the spot, that they were indeed U.S. citizens. None could (except me because as I carry my U.S. passport with me for business).
The Americans didn't like being confronted with the reality that when asked about their own status, they couldn't provide it.
So, what if everyone simply answers the Census by indicating that they're U.S. Citizens?
1
@mrfreeze6...passports can be forged or stolen. Mere possession of a passport is not irrefutable evidence of citizenship.
4
@mrfreeze6
Smart people have a picture of their b-certificate on their smart phones. As well as passports too.
"...for the first time in more than half a century, (the census will ask) about their citizenship status."
- You kind of skipped over this part. Why was it OK fifty years ago but not OK now.
"It (the census) isn’t to be used as a fishing expedition to get random information on people
- If "random" information like whether you're a citizen isn't important why would a person's race age or gender? The census asks for that random data.
"The Constitution requires lawmakers to represent every single person in their district, not just certain people or fractions of people."
- How would knowing the number of citizens vs non-citizens compromise an elected official's ability to represent them? Children can't vote. There's lots of programs for kids.
"The Constitution requires lawmakers to represent every single person in their district, not just certain people or fractions of people. We fought a civil war over this concept!
- No. We fought a war over slavery. Once slavery ended we ratified the 14th amendment which made the children born of anyone legally in the US a citizen. That meant freed slaves. Immigration laws at the end of the civil war were non existent. The 14th was never intended as a loophole for anchor babies.
"They’re trying to fundamentally change... this country... by creating different classes of people..."
- Non-citizens are exactly that - a second class of citizen. So are felons. There's nothing wrong with that. They're still represented.
17
The citizenship question is one of the more nefarious and perhaps far reaching items planned for the 2020 census. Steve Brannon and Kris Kobach want to penalize and perhaps terrorize immigrant communities.
From a personal liability standpoint, it’s probably fine not to answer the citizenship question. But there’s no doubt the anti immigrant folks will then assume all non-responders are members of an illegal immigrant community. From there it’s a short step to drawing erroneous, politically motivated, conclusions that justify interventions or affect federal resources.
It should be no surprise, but the census is already a battleground for various partisan activities. Millions of prisoners are counted as residents of rural districts where they are incarcerated rather than their true home. It’s a recognized form of red district gerrymandering that adds non-voting people of color.
There have also been efforts to oppose statistical corrections for the systematic undercounting known to occur in urban and poor communities.
Taken together, these are all activities that concentrate power in one political party by denying people and communities their constitutional rights. If litigated, I imagine our far right Supreme Court will somehow find justification for discrimination and disenfranchisement in our founding documents.
2
@Michael Tyndall It never occurred to me that prisoners are counted as residents of the rural districts in which they are incarcerated as an "accepted" form of gerrymandering! Thank you, I think (sigh), for this disturbing piece of information. More reasons why the Republican party is in the majority when, in fact, they are the minority among voters.
2
Most people have good hearts. Yes, human beings are self-interested but most of us have controls on it.
The most insatiably greedy, corrupt people since Genghis Khan have taken over OUR governments and - in OUR names - want to purge "undesirables" which is anyone who doesn't look like them: white, rich males and their boys/girls.
During WWII OUR government used social security numbers to round up all Japanese Americans and put them in concentration camps. In most cases they confiscated the property of innocents - just like the nazis did in Europe. Fortunately we didn't exterminate the Japanese Americans but it is a stain on OUR country that we put everyone into the same "barrel" - without reason.
That is what is happening now and, thanks to the ACLU and Socially Conscious lawmakers, state attorney generals, lawyers/judges, and other organizations,
WE THE PEOPLE are stepping up and shouting NO. Not in OUR America.
Not now. Not ever again.
6
Perhaps if the question survives and makes it onto the census then citizens in red districts can refuse to complete census?
Maybe that is a way to fight for our democracy.
No jury should rule on a care without hearing the evidence, no financial planner should make investment recommendations without understanding a client's holdings and income, and no doctor would treat a cancer without doing scans. Similarly, no country should make policy about immigration without knowing exactly how many people are in the country legally, and how many are here illegally. If the number of illegal immigrants here is 5 million, that means one kind of policy. If it's 15 or 20 million, it means another policy. Counting is the most neutral thing out there. Let's do it, so we know the extent of the problem, if it indeed exists.
12
Counting immigrants can be done with other polling methods. To know what immigration policy to put in place, you need just a broad idea of how many are crossing the border (legal or illegal) and for representation in Congress, you need as close to perfectly accurate as possible. By putting the question of citizenship on the census, you get more info than necessary (theoretically) for the immigrant count and kill the accuracy of the census count.
3
@Scott L., polling is uncertain; our broad range of undocumented workers and families in America now runs from 8 to 25 million. That's too broad to shape a policy. The Census, because of its privacy laws, is the least intrusive and most certain way to get this data.
2
As a matter of common sense, the census should ask whether the respondent is a U.S. citizen. It also should ask what additional citizenships are held. Dual citizenship has become fairly common. Probably some people have more than two citizenships.
15
What does it matter to the government if someone has dual citizenship?
2
@Eugene Windchy. Some even have three! I know of an American dad with a Canadian wife whose children were born in Mexico!
President Trump's immigrant grandparents had no qualms about answering the citizenship question. On the 1910 U.S. Census, Trump’s immigrant grandfather Frederick Trump indicated he became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1885. The 1910 census also shows his wife Elizabeth became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1902. It shows their children were citizens by virtue of being born in the United States.
The 1910 Census did not become available until 1982 because of the 72-Year-Rule, which prevents the Census Bureau from releasing personally identifiable information until 72 years have passed. Today, the 1910 Census forms are available on ancestry.com. The 1910 Census shows the absurdity of the authors’ assertion that the citizenship question is a Trump administration plot.
18
Will legal immigrants answer the question of citizenship? Most likely, yes. Will illegal immigrants? Probably not. By not wanting to answer that question, the count of PEOPLE will be thrown off. Remember that Trump has already thrown kids into cages. Would you tell the government that a family member would be subject to such treatment under the law or would you hide them from the question?
2
Has trust in the government degraded that much that folks would be fearful in identifying their citizenship status on a census, regardless of the 70yr rule? Or is the question to add citizen status on the census there to argue that the census is for citizens only, not including all residents (as the Constitution states).
I personally see the question as a set-up. Looking back on GOP history, all these narrow, specific topics are really just a means for slowly chipping away at our rights and freedom (oh, the irony).
The topic of immigration is a different issue.
I found it interesting that rural areas are identified as difficult to accurately count, particularly counting non-citizens. One might think those areas would like to be better represented. But I suppose it is relativistic, cities and coastal areas are historically more liberal anywhere in the globe, so a greater proportion of the under-counted might reside there, resulting in a net gain for the more nativistic crowd.
6
Here in Canada the previous Conservative government cancelled the mandatory census and replaced it with a voluntary survey, which is always statistically useless. Their specious justification had to do with individual rights, namely, the right to refuse to fill out a form truthfully. Their real reason was to undermine the valuable source of hard information that a census provides and which underpins many government and non-government programs. If this information is lacking there is no objective counter to politically motivated lies. Authoritarian governments through history have hated an accurate national census because it produces facts and undermines propaganda.
12
Does citizenship status really matter on the census? This seems to be more of a political question than a legal question.
However, I strongly support validating citizenship in order to vote and wish every voter present his citizenship credentials for every presidential election. For native born Americans, birth certificate records should be available and (for the most part) easily obtainable. For naturalized Americans, formal citizenship documents should be available when citizenship was granted. These documents should be readily available for every American -NO EXCUSES. My own experience is that local voting authorities do little to validate citizenship and operate on a defacto citizenship honor system.
13
With notoriously poor voter turnout and higher recorded evidence of voter suppression than actual instances of voter fraud, why would anyone want lower levels of participation in our democracy. If anything outreach attempts should be made for easier, wide ranging enactment of the hard fought right to vote.
1
@Sarpol Gas What if you are very old and have voted all of your adult life but come from a time children were born at home and no one was issuing birth certificates? What if you have never had a SS# because you were born before these were mandatory and never worked outside your home? What if you showed up with what you had been told were the proper identification papers and were told - not once, but numerous times, each time you returned - that you didn't have the correct papers? What if any number of other scenarios, all of which have occurred when citizens who tried to verify that citizenship were still denied their rights?
4
"The people who cast the votes don't decide an election, the people who count the votes do." -Joseph Stalin
6
simply don't answer questions that pry!
1
The price of liberty is vigilance!
3
So, the question of what regular people can do about this was never answered. NYT, what's the answer to the question you asked?
12
@ChesBay I wondered the same thing.
We could simply wreck the citizenship stat by refusing to answer it, or answering it incorrectly.
But that's not solving the problem: The goal is to scare undocumented immigrants into not even answering the door. The mere presence of the question will be chilling enough, and that is the point.
So write your Congressperson about this and then collapse back in your chair in despair.
2
If all conscientious citizens answer "no" to this stupid question, the whole issue will become irrelevant -- just as it should be. I am a native-born American, and I haven't missed voting in an election for decades. I used to vote for some responsible Republicans, but I never will again, thanks to Mr. Trump.
11
If we do, how long until the GOP uses that to justify reducing representation for cities that are usually liberal? If the question makes it onto the census and the GOP stays in control, they will undoubtedly use the info to cheat the system again.
1
Let's talk about the Census.
I confess right away that the most interesting thing about this article is that for the very first time in my experience, the New York Times has somebody writing about the US Census.
It is true, that in 2013, an Editor name unknown asked Professor Kenneth Prewitt, former USCB Director, if he, Prewitt, could submit an OpEd about his new book "What Is Your Race? The Census and Our Flawed Efforts to Classify Americans".
Prewitt did that and his OpEd was published in 2013. I thought that the OpEd would lead readers and the New York Times to write much about Prewitt's basic argument, that the Census is archaic and should be transformed.
From then to now, not a word in the Times on this subject - until today!
I look forward to a an article under the headline:
Why the Government Wants to Know What Race You Belong To.
Prewitt and a few others, myself included, think the Census should be transformed, probably take a few decades, to finally end use of that question "What Is Your Race?"
Perhaps I will get some clues from reading comments about citizenship as concerns what I can expect if Prewitt's proposal were to be implemented.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
Race Human with perhaps 2% Neanderthal - genome analysis was ordered yesterday!
5
Truly tempest in a teapot. At the end of the second answer to the second question, as she loaded the boat up with fictional pure evil intent, I almost anticipated she would add boxcars and gas chambers.
This is just hysteria packaged as more rage against white people. In her own words states already require the question of citizenship. So the Federal government wants the same. What's the big woop!
What is being plugged here are allusions of evil intent glean from supposition fleshed from emails. But no real wording from these email to support the hate white people-blame then for everything agenda.
Non-citizens are simply another category of the population period. End of story.
30
The big whoop is that by limiting the number of people willing to answer the census for fear of being thrown in a cage or deported, the cities will lose representatives in Congress. This will hurt funding for cities that have to educate everyone regardless of citizenship. This hurts everyone who didn’t vote for Trump and is just another underhanded plot for GOP to push for an advantage even though they represent so few people.
4
At least its clear why democrats support an open borders policy.
23
The write-up (‘Why the government wants to know your citizenship status’, dated, 4th August, 2018 New York times) irks the citizens putting them in utter discomfiture.A country’s growth right from economic developments to education and health sectors depends on the individual contributions and there can never be any divisions among the citizens on race, ethnic background, financial status or even the languages, which if permissible, would put the country on regressive path. Sans knowing this fact, the rhetorical question of ‘Are you an American citizen? ‘ the Trump’s administration has stirred the Hornet’s nest resulting in as many as law suits, leave alone the matter is now sub judice. The suggestion that the Justice Department is asked to go for door-to-door campaign is the height of risible absurdity along the line of enforcing the Voting Rights Act, for the existing law can be amended only for those who illegally stay in America rather than giving ulcer to all and sundry. That apart, America is land of opportunities and is an El Dorado for the world citizens. Hence, deporting the skilled labour is nothing short of asininity. Come what may, as the swan song of the write-up opined, for Trumps’ governance, it is one of his faux pas. No wonder, he has earned the wrath of all en masse. Let us sit and watch as to how the President and the judiciary are going to get it done and dusted. Till then, peace be with all!
E.S.Chandrasekaran, Chennai-37, India
1
I’m a 70 year old white woman. I was renewing my drivers license and for the first time ever I was asked if I was a citizen and then asked to prove it. I was stunned. I don’t carry a birth certificate with me (at this point in my life I don’t even have a copy of it!). This was very Orwellian and smacked of Nazi Germany “papers please”!
13
@Mary As far as I know this would happen only in obtaining a "Real ID" -- initiated by the Federal Government. If it is draconian, it went through Clongress some time ago. Here's an FAQ from out there in cyberrealm:
"For now, your state driver's licence is still fine as an ID when you fly. In many states, you can already apply to get a compliant ID by visiting your local DMV. ... By October 1, 2020, every air traveler will need a REAL ID-compliant license (or another acceptable form of ID such as a passport) for domestic air travel."
6
"Well, for starters, states already know [citizenship] information. They have it through the American Community Survey..."
Let's be clear about this. First the ACS is a proxy because it is not sent to every household unlike in the state of Massachusetts where the only annual resident census is conducted every year and asks for citizenship status of every resident. Massachusetts has everything.
The NYT should not neglect to mention this. Learn more: www.BayStateBreakdown.com
16
These newcomers kids (Trumps, Sessions, Bannons, Wllbur, whatevers) .... who do they think they are? My family name is in the USA since 1565. A citizenship question? Not only that, why not which generation of American are you? Please stick to the US Constitutional mandate to count people. We all came to America at some point.
8
Yep, citizenship is a concept whose moment has passed says the NYTimes. I wonder if the ancient romans felt the same way when the Visagoths decided that the empire was ripe for sacking.
26
It’s time the states and cities that act as sanctuary jurisdictions pay for their insistence on harboring illegals. Don’t ask the rest of the taxpayers to do so.
22
Then rural areas should not rely on cities to support their infrastructure. Be careful about demanding punishment on cities because they pay the lion’s share of taxes and studies have shown that they get less than they put into a state. If a city gets hit, you’ll get hit too!
5
It's Big Brotherism auld nauseum. The likes of Donald Trump and Steve Bannon have no legitimate regard for our total population. Show us your taxes, Mr. Trump.
6
"First, they came for the immigrants..."
9
The Editors are disingenuously promoting a LIE. The untold truth is this......voting is NOT a right. No where in history has voting ever been simply granted to a person simply because they are a human being that exists in the area where voting takes place. Voting is a RESPONSIBILITY placed on a resident/citizen/human being that meets a specific list of requirements. In America, our unique dillemma over who gets to vote springs directly from our history of denying the vote to black african slaves. WE ratified several amendments intended to re-inforce the freed black african slave's qualifications and responsibility to vote......however, there was never any political will to do such a thing.....instead the 14th amendment has been abused to allow Corporations, foreigners who are NOT citizens, etc,etc to gain privledge. The DNC....a corporation by the way.....cynically takes advantage of the NYTs readership's misunderstanding of the law.
26
The Constitution usually doesn’t proclaim a right but sets limits on the government to restrict them. The first and second and fifth amendments should be clear evidence of that fact. The right to vote is mentioned more often in the Constitution than any other right.
The 14th amendment provides nothing to non citizens so I’m not sure where you got that idea.
1
@Wherever Hugo Sure, and the moon is made of cream cheese.
2
As it is, there is representation without taxation.
5
In Ca-- the largest and most prosperous state--we have taxation without representation due to the faux house ceiling of 435. Thus, I as a citizen double resent this trumpist effort to reduce California power even more.
8
@Karen...CA is not the largest, it is the most populace state, which is why it has 53 Representatives in the House. If you are being taxed without representation, complain to Pelosi. Or Waters, Feinstein or Harris.
2
What this article fails to note is that for most of our history the census questionnaire has asked the citizenship question. Indeed, the exclusive use of a short-form questionnaire omitting any inquiry about citizenship has happened only once, in 2010. We all know which political party controlled the White House and both houses of congress in the roll-up to that census.
Of course the Republicans have a political motive in restoring the citizenship question. Equally obviously, the Democrats had and have a political motive in eliminating the question.
The issue should not be whether we collect this important piece of information, but how to prevent mis-use of the information.
20
@Louis Sernoff Your information is incomplete. For the full story please go to this link: https://www.npr.org/2018/03/27/597436512/fact-check-has-citizenship-been...
4
"From 2014 to 2017, Ms. Gupta served as the acting head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division."
Only three years? One might think that would be just enough time to determine that a civil servant was not quite up to the job, maybe because of partisan activity?
8
This is just nonsense. The vast majority of people living in the USA are citizens. So what is the problem? There are areas where very few people living in a particular district are citizens. I know because I lived in one in LA. The only time I didn't have to wait in line was to vote. I have no problem with just handing out citizenship to anyone who is here. But, citizenship has both privileges and responsibilities. Counting heads is just cheating. Count citizens. If Someone is running in a district that is 90% non- citizens and you think you should have the same demographic status as one that has 90% citizens, you are just cheating. Basically, your constituency is going to get benefits along with you without the responsibilities of being a citizen. And if you think there aren't responsibilities to being a citizen, let me tell you that I was called for jury duty every 6 months when I lived in LA.
17
The Census was correctly designed to include all residents when the number of non-citizens in America was significant, a fact Bannon and other racists want to ignore. One of our first nationalization laws mandated that white people living in the U.S. for 3 years or more could apply for citizenship, a similar sentiment in recent immigration reform stripped of the racist language that radicals like Bannon helped scuttle. We're a nation of immigrants that includes my Irish maternal great grandmother who snuck into the U.S. through Canada in 1875. We must honor the sentiments we read on the Statue of Liberty and include everyone in the census residing in our country
7
I guess if the government wants to know this and the NRA is fine with them asking these questions I guess it's time we had a gun registry.
4
a lot of talk about "neighbor."
" is my neighbor a citizen? "
" who is my neighbor ? "
Christians have an answer to that.
3
Will the Supreme Court enforce the Constitution? If you add another right-wing Republican white man, the answer is probably no.
Witness the recent allowance of the Muslim Ban, a violation of the Establishment Clause and a denial of equal protection, motivated by publicly announced prejudice and hate.
7
@Robin Foor
Foreigners not even on American soil are not entitled to American constitutional protections.
3
This President lies to the American public several times a day to manipulate public opinion. I have no trust in anything this administration puts out. The public might have to use his example against him to get what they want because this administration clearly condones lying.
7
"Right now, there are six federal lawsuits challenging the citizenship question. In one of these cases, filed by 17 state attorneys general and a bipartisan conference of mayors, the judge has suggested the administration included the question in “bad faith.” A lot more is going to be revealed, but it’s quite possible that federal courts will find that the process violated federal law and possibly even the Constitution."
Well duh. The GOP loves bad-faith rule. Just ask President Obama, or should-be-Justice Garland, or should-be-CFPB head Warren. For the "covfefe" GOP, the Constitution, laws, and Bible verse are things to be broken to ensure the free flow of briefcases to the Caymans—until their enemies benefit from the rules too, and then they become hammers to smash opposition through hypocritical lawyering.
It's a safe bet there are many more Gym Jordans, Rafael Cruzes, and Wilbur Rosses who use the fruits of an outlaw life to get the power to slam the door behind them. Far better would be to be The Hero With a Thousand Faces, and use such hustle to bring others the same opportunity.
2
It’s a simple and leagal question to ask as the government needs to know how many actual citizens there are Vs illegals.
It’s a question, that’s all, if you’re living here, it’s your obligation to answer it.
Does everything have to be an argument in this country.
The simplest of things is like pulling teeth!
21
The Times assumes its readers want to stop the question of the legitimate presence, or not, of someone in the United States. And to present only one side of the issue, it chooses the most extreme partisan -- the ACLU. This reflects the Times' chronic lack of diversity in management.
We therefore have the grotesque intellectually perverse spectacle of the editorial board itself calling upon one extreme on an issue without sensing it might be more intellectually honest to seek balance with a competing view.
10
Asking about one's citizenship is a reasonable question for a census. Sorry.
If illegals can't answer truthfully, well I can see why the Editorial Board wants to argue motive.
23
All these trump trolls make the same claim, that immigrant = illegal. Of course not true. That's why the census counts people. ca deserves more money for transit, say, than Wyoming because we have more people and thus need transit.
1
Contrary to the last sentence, the "bottom line" here is how best to keep disenfranchising U.S. citizens from the representation they deserve in Congress. The NYT and other liberal media outlets know from statistics that some urban democratic districts contain barely half the number of US citizens as Republican suburban districts. That non-citizens, particularly illegals, are used to disenfranchise American citizens is abhorrent.
24
IF Census information on citizenship status were actually used to determine seats in the House of Representatives, how many Representatives would California loose? Is it possible there are Congressional districts in which there are more immigrants than citizens?
9
As a retiree I thought it would be something different so I volunteered for the 2010 Census. You do not have to answer any questions you don't want to and no one is coming to your door to haul you away for not answering a question. Of course that was before we had a dictator in the White House.
6
how many times do we need to be told and how many examples do we need of how partisanship is severely dividing our country....
@guillermo: good thought, adding a census question "how many guns are in your household?"
how would that go over?
2
@VM...It would be interesting to know how many guns liberals and progressives are hoarding in their homes.
https://www.census.gov/mso/www/training/pdf/race-ethnicity-onepager.pdf
"...The Census Bureau adheres to strict confidentiality laws that prohibit sharing of respondent information. We do not share respondent answers with immigration, law enforcement, tax collection agencies or any other organization...
.....
So...
> OK to ask about race/ethnicity
> Not OK to ask about citizenship
7
If you are not a citizen, then stop demanding rights
that only citizens have.
Why is it assumed by Gupta and others that non-citizens
should have any input in how the United States is governed -
do they have it in every other country ?
If un-documented immigrants flood into cities,
that hardly means those cities should get more
representatives in Congress.
Gupta wants all undocumented immigrants to have the power to vote and be represented -
as such she is a traitor to the Constitution and
should be disbarred.
28
@John Brown
"If un-documented immigrants flood into cities,
that hardly means those cities should get more
representatives in Congress."
You can make an argument for that policy. But it would require a constitutional amendment.
The constitution is clear that the census counts people, and not citizens or voters, when determining the number of representatives in each Congressional district.
As we all know, only citizens over 18 can vote. But representation under the Constitution, based on census counts, is for all people. (This also includes children under 18 who are citizens but cannot vote.)
"Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct."
5
How about we all optout?
2
The Slave States of the Confederate South have a long, proud history of perverting the US census.
Beginning with the their fight in during the Constitutional Convention to have their slaves counted as 3/5 of a person but of course, unable to vote, then utilizing poll taxes and Jim Crow Laws to take away the vote from freed slaves, then with bogus illegal voting claims and gerrymandered districts.
The Neo-Confederates of the Slaves of the South are undemocratic and simply do not believe in the right of all men and women to vote, full stop.
Call them out for what they are, anachronisms of the Slave States of the South.
4
The writers of Murphy Brown summed up the republican intent with Stuart Best character (Wallace Shawn). Need to determine who is 7/8th Caucasian, thought it was satire at the time, now it seems to be the policy of the Republicans.
"Inconceivable!! " - Vizzini, The Princess Bride.
(A link to the Murphy Brown clip. https://youtu.be/aoj2LIO0xXs)
3
Regular people: Spread the word that it is SAFE to answer the census. It's also required by law. Everyone's answers on the census form are completely confidential. By law, the Census Bureau cannot share your answers with law enforcement or with any other government agency or for any nonstatistical purpose. The 2020 census records will be released to the public only in 2092.
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/director/2018/05/the_u_s_census_bu...
https://www.census.gov/history/www/genealogy/decennial_census_records/th...
11
Another action today is issuing federally approved Real ID driver's licenses. I know, because I just renewed my driver's license here in Illinois. Illinois has a waiver that puts things off a bit, but eventually every state must comply, and that means a license applicant must show a birth certificate, social security card, and proof of current address — or other documents that prove the same data. This is state by state, but the driver's license/state ID will then become equivalent to a federal ID card. The law setting this up passed in 2005, but Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama didn't enforce it. Our current president is making every state comply.
This all fits in with Republican goals. Don't count immigrants. Boot them out of the country if possible. Make it difficult to vote. I can't help thinking about our current President's grandfather. He came to America as a teenager. He couldn't speak English, and his only skill was cutting hair. But he was enterprising. He went to the state of Washington and made money operating a brothel. Then he moved up to Yukon and made even more money doing the same thing. He went back to Bavaria, found and married his wife, and then was forced out of Bavaria because of draft evasion. He had accumulated lots of money by then, came back to New York City, and established a real estate business, the beginning of the Trump Organization. Wonderful. Our current President wouldn't let his grandfather into the country today.
13
Asking who is a citizen is a perfectly normal question to ask on a national census. The only reason the Democrats don't want it asked is because they want as many illegals as possible in the country. They view them as future Democratic voters once they get an amnesty law passed.
29
An amnesty won’t grant a non-citizen the right to vote.
1
Great information; but dressing up a Vanita Gupta Op-Ed piece as an Editorial by the Editorial Board strikes me as a bad idea: It certainly highlights the importance of the issue, but it dilutes the importance/significance of your Editorial forum as the place where the NYTimes most trusted and responsible decisionmakers hold forth after careful consideration of issues.
6
Could you add to this article comment on possible consequences of not answering this question if it does appear?
3
Is there anything the Trump “administration” does that isn’t in “bad faith”?
6
This whole debate is about support and opposition to illegal immigration. One side wants to enforce our immigration laws. The other supports people illegally residing in the country, having families and enjoying the benefits of our social programs. One side wants to stabilize the country while the other wants to demographically transform the nation. The real racists here are the supporters of illegal immigration. It is hard for me to understand why so many have such hatred for White Protestant Americans.
22
Looks like the Trump administration would just prefer to simply go back to the constitutional "Originalists" view of counting a black slave as 3/5 of a person like our first constitution did. And add to that (maybe, in an act of generosity) a Muslim, a woman, a hispanic, etc. etc. etc.... ad infinitum. And maybe even YOU.
5
...and yet it's white businessmen who tarnish the country with their abject greed, assiduously manipulating the political system to gain and maintain the power to sustain their corrupt machinations.
5
America is fast becoming the new South Africa. Thank you Mr 45. On top of that we're going to have a state region .... yes, good old fashioned Bible-thumping.
Hang on it's going to be a wild ride.
5
Do you think that when the founders used the term "persons" they had no concept of immigration - or illegal immigration - as a political issue? Illegal immigration was hardly a burning question in 1787, so it's reasonable to assume that by "persons" they meant citizens.
At least that's the argument I'd expect Ruth Bader Ginsburg to make since she doesn't believe in originalism!
There is a common sense argument to be made for the proposition that only citizens should be considered when determining representation in Congress. But the fact that this is even an issue probably explains why the Democratic Party is so supportive of catch and release immigration policy.
16
We have a flawed system. Why not fix it? In this case eliminate gerrymandering. It could be done by reducing the number of representatives being elected directly through their district into one half and elect the other half considering the total votes cast for each party in each state taking in consideration the number of representatives each party got through district voting. For example if the Republicans won all districts but in the state as a whole 49% of the votes were cast on Democrats, that party would receive all the non-district representatives, i.e., in the end have the fifty-fifty representation that the overall voting reflects.
1
"more to the point, it would play into Steve Bannon’s greatest dream, which would be to have a systematic undercount of vulnerable communities, particularly communities of color, that would result in reduced political representation and reduced availability of basic services." - yup, that works for me as a summary of why this administration insists on adding the citizenship question - it is a ploy to further reduce the political footprint of blue, coastal, urban America where most of the immigrants live, cementing the rightward shift as permanent ...
4
The GOP has demonstrated many times over the last decade an explicit interest in reducing liberal representation in congress by suppressing turnout, Gerrymandering districts, lying about voter fraud and by making it harder to register and vote.
These efforts take on the complexion of conspiracy sometimes, exemplified by the North Carolina voter ID law where "smoking gun" emails between GOP legislators led a federal judge to say it was "surgically targeted" to disenfranchise black voters.
This citizenship question is just one more undemocratic, un-American trick the GOP is pulling out of its bag to delay the inevitable effects of demographic change.
5
It's so disheartening to read many of these comments in the NYT, to see how many of our fellow citizens--who should know better--have learned absolutely nothing from history.
How many of the commenters on this article are descendants of immigrants? How many are children of those who fought the Nazis during WWII? How many should have learned in school what the Nazis did in the run-up to WWII? How many should know what we did to American citizens of Japanese ancestry during the war? That what we are doing now paves the road to the same atrocities?
What on earth is wrong with people who display such blatant xenophobia? Thinly veiled bigotry? Why so much hate? How can you dehumanize your fellow human beings? Why is someone who speaks a different language or whose skin is brown such a threat to you?
It boggles the mind how the richest nation in the world, peopled by those whose dirt-poor ancestors immigrated from elsewhere, can be so mean-spirited and inhumane to their fellow travelers. It's our national shame. Are we that small? Is this what America has become? Or have we always been so minuscule in mind and poor of spirit?
Our ancestors, yours and mind, stole this land and committed genocide against its rightful inhabitants, built a country on the blood of slaves. Many at the southern border have deeper ancestral ties to this land than most of the rest of us. And you want to bar the door?
America has become a little people, a silly people, greedy, barbarous, and cruel.
270
@Curious, What is a "rightful inhabitant?" Are there wrongful or unjustified inhabitants? What are "ancestral ties" that might be used to argue that one has more right to live somewhere than a Johnny-come-lately?
I hear that the folks who lived in this land were pretty upset when the first waves of immigrants came ashore. Nothing has changed. Nothing.
1
@Curious
I only take issue with your statement "has become": simply reading our history will show we were "little silly greedy barbarous and cruel" - truly cruel - all along.
"America has become a little people, a silly people, greedy, barbarous, and cruel."
@Curious -
No quote from Lawrence of Arabia can succeed in strengthening your argument. The issue is primarily illegal immigration. Only fringe elements oppose immigration per se. Coincidentally, last night I was reading my grandfather's autobiography. He came in through Ellis Island - legally.
Opposition to law-breaking hardly makes one silly, barbarous or cruel.
The battle is lost to accurately count. People worried about the government won’t respond and won’t be counted. Too dangerous for them. This is rational.
1
If you refuse to respond to the census, someone will come to your door. And, they will keep coming back. You can be fined a maximum of $5,000. However, no one has been prosecuted for a census violation since the 1970's. But, as the article points out, not answering plays right into Steve Bannon's hand. He and the Republicans would love to narrow the numbers as much as they can, and thereby narrow political representation for everyone but their (mostly) White supporters. There's a good chance that one of the six lawsuits working through the courts will disallow the citizenship question. But, it's important to answer the census, in order to keep political representation for everyone, not just rich, White communities.
4
The mission of the census is to count people. So just count and shut up.
I have no problem with the census asking the gender and age of those whom they count. But that's it.
12
Just redact the information you don’t want to share with a broad ink pen.
This fits in with the other States Rights issues as being red or blue. Marijuana, abortion, etc. Red States want the question, Blue States don't. I think each state should do what they want, the Feds aren't enforcing all Federal laws anyway.
Republicans don't care about anything but winning the next election, staying in power to serve the rich. Norms, traditions, the rule of law, morality, truth, the environment, civility, compromise, their Constitutional oaths, the lives and welfare of this and future generations have no bearing whatsoever on anything they do. Their only calculation is: will this help in our re-election, and can we get away with it?
6
Anyone can file a comment on the Census with the Commerce Dept. There is currently just 25k responses. Certainly more people have an opinion! Can't hurt, might help.
https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=USBC-2018-0005-0001
2
Did I hear that right?
We fought a civil war so that lawmakers could represent illegal immigrants in their districts?
We fought a civil war so that illegal immigrants could indirectly get the vote in our elections?
We fought a civil war so that so that millions of lawbreakers could get taxpayer-funded federal benefits?
What sort of fools does Vanita Gupta take us for?
There's more.
Gupta tells us that the Constitution requires us to to count each and every person, not just citizens or legal residents. But almost in the same breath she says that "only one constitutional purpose for the census, which is to allocate seats in the House of Representatives and to determine Electoral College votes."
Let me get this straight. It is necessary to count NON-VOTERS in order to determine the allocation of seats in Congress to which only VOTERS can elect candidates????
Does anyone believe this stuff?
11
@Ian Maitland: Read the constitution. Non-citizens are counted in determining the number of representatives. It's in the constitution.
However, there has been a cap on the number in the House since 1911. The cap is 435; this census, no matter how many aliens, legal or not, are counted, won't add to the number of representatives.
4
Let's remember George Orwell's lines in "animal farm": 'all are created equal but some are more equal than others'. This, meaning that the animals that overthrew the "dictator", so to install social justice and more equality, in due time committed the same abuses when in power, Tyranny and Oppression. In the current state of affairs with republicans and their 'chief in-crime', brutus ignoramus (by choice) Trump, the same may be occurring under our noses. If we do not stand up and stop them from abusing their power, the majority will suffer the consequences from Trump's installed pluto-kleptocracy (hence, the stupid idea that 'some are more equal than others').
3
What if U.S. citizens opposed to the question replied "Earth"?
3
I will answer the citizen question on a census. I bring a photo ID to vote. I present 2 forms of ID at medical appointments. CVS requests ID...is everything a conspiracy by a sinister organization?
7
@kevin
The mark of conservative apologism today is to be intentionally obtuse in the face of the obvious. The clear goal is to discourage full cooperation with the census in immigrant communities, which lean liberal, thereby reducing liberal representation in Congress. This is just one more attempt at suppression by the GOP, in a long line of dirty tricks.
1
@kevin ummm do you watch the news and what’s going on??
1
Suppression of the minority vote—and by extension, deliberate undercounting of the minority population—is one area of agreement among the three wings of the Republican Party: Establishment Republicans, Trumpublicans, and Kochpublicans. It will persist.
5
Question: If Trump committed treason, as some have suggested he did, and is convicted of such, Will he lose his citizenship?
Maybe he’s obsessed with other people’s citizenship status because he knows or fears that his own, or that of his children, might be in jeopardy.
2
@JewToo
No, there is no provision in the Constitution for revocation of citizenship. See the 14th Amendment.
Jail will have to do for Trump.
3
What this article demonstrates is the Trump administration is the enemy of the people. Trump and his Republican minions are turning the power of the government into an instrument of fear.
Most Americans want government to work for them, not against them. Sadly, 40 percent of Americans want to use the government to threaten and dictate to the other 60 percent.
If decent Americans don't step up to save America we will devolve into the scourge of the earth, a tyrannical super power, a despot heading a theocracy, an intimidated majority suppressed by a rabid minority.
November 2018 is a call to action.
If the courts do not stop Trump's unjust abuse of the census, then the American people should lie and inflate their household members and state that all are citizens.
7
I will not be answering that question or answering the door.
1
Just ask Google how many people there are, and where they are.
They know.
7
I don't understand the problem. No federal agent is following up on you. Just lie. "Sure, I'm a citizen." We all know why the government is doing this. They're trying to disenfranchise 11 million people. If you have to lie about your citizenship status, do so proudly. Trump would. I'm pretty sure both his dad and his wife did.
3
@Mark Duhe: And if they decide, after the fact, that they will investigate where there is "reasonable suspicion" of lying on the census?
@Mark Duhe...Mark, you've confused me. I'm an American citizen, so should I just lie and say "Nope, I'm not an American citizen". What should I do if they ask us of which country we are a citizen? It's so hard to save democrazy when you have to lie about stuff.
1
Seats in the House of Representative are apportioned by size of population.
If states receive more votes in the HOR because the Federal Census starts counting/including people who are not even legal citizens of the United States then we have ceased being a democracy and we are now on the road to either civil war or dissolution of the Union.
10
@maguire
Representatives are supposed to represent the interests of Everyone in their district. If you are in a rural farming district, your representative should be representing the rights and needs of immigrant or "guest" workers, as well as the interests of the people who own and profit from the farm.
Non-citizens pay into social security, medicare, unemployment insurance, local, state and federal taxes. They work at jobs most American citizens won't do without increasing the pay threefold. (That of course is an issue to consider. Perhaps we should be paying 3 times as much for elder care and chicken processing.)
If you believe in following the original Constitution than citizenship is not a question for the census.
5
@Sharon
Non citizens do not have voting rights
If you are not a citizen you, by definition are not represented by anyone.
If you want to change the rules fine, it is called an amendment to the Constitution.
1
Ms. Gupta is very selective about what she wants the government to tell us. When she was Acting Civil Rights Commissioner under Obama, the report by her commission on Ferguson implicated the police in Ferguson with data mining of statistical associations that argued that Blacks were more likely to receive traffic citations by Ferguson police. Such citations could have been either caused by real racial bias or by other factors like how the traffic through Ferguson is more likely to be black because neighboring cities to Ferguson are overwhelmingly black. Incidentally, neighoring cities also have large number of traffic tickets issued to Blacks, but their police chiefs are black and their police force are largely black.
But Ms. Gupta only wanted us to consider the racial bias explanation. I requested under the Freedom of Information act to have the data sets that she and her data miners used so to look at the data objectively. I was denied access and the explanation was that such alternative data analyses which lead to alternative explanations could interfere with potential prosecutions that her office was pursuing. As it turned out, the "Hands Up Don't Shoot" claim was a lie and no potential prosecutions by the Justice Dept. were ever effective in proving any police bias in traffic ticketing.
Racial bias is always a potential problem. But public officials like this who only consider racial bias as the only explanation seems to be a larger problem.
9
The only people threatened by adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census would be illegal aliens and, of course, politicians seeking illegal votes.
Most Americans welcome LEGAL immigrants, but do not want ILLEGAL aliens; i.e., foreigners in the US illegally. We cannot afford (or choose not) to support our own citizens: the poor, the ill, elderly, disabled, veterans, et al. It is therefore utterly impossible for US taxpayers to support the hundreds of millions of foreigners who would like to come here.
US laws allow foreigners (aliens) to seek entry and citizenship. Those who do not follow these laws are in this country illegally (i.e., illegal aliens) and should be detained and deported; this is policy in other countries, too.
The cruelty lies not in limiting legal immigration, or detaining and deporting illegal aliens, or forcing those who wish to enter the US to wait for processing. What is cruel, unethical and probably illegal is encouraging parents to bring their children on the dangerous trek to US borders and teaching the parents how to game the system to enter the US by falsely claiming asylum, persecution, abuse, etc. Many consider those who bring their children on arduous and dangerous journeys to enter the US illegally are guilty of child abuse.
Abolishing ICE makes sense only to advocates of open borders, a policy no nation will ever approve. We will lose the mid-terms and 2020 elections if open borders are part of the Democratic platform.
11
The purpose by Republicans to introduce the citizenship question on the census is to limit democracy itself. For the same reason the Republican party is invested in maintaining gerrymandering and the electoral college, as well a limiting voter access to the polls.
The Republicans are comfortable with Putin because he is on their side to diminish democracy. Trump is a white supremacist who has surrounded himself with a staff and cabinet that compliment his prejudice.
Russia has an iconic status with American white supremacists (and the NRA apparently) as a bastion of white-only domination. Trump is on video approvingly telling us that Putin uses the n-word to describe Obama.
Anyone who insists that not all Trump voters are racist is immediately contradicted by the fact that they knowingly vote for a virulent racist. Well, at least the battle lines are now crystal clear.
7
"Anti-immigrant, anti-people-of-color" not. Only those without legitimate status need to run in fear of this Census Bureau initative. Those who have entered the USA without invitation or portfolio and who are here to steal a job from someone born in the country, or whose presence equates to felonious conduct such as narcotics trafficking, need to worry. Abuses of H2B visas that include piling on an entire family of Indo-Dravidian freeloaders when only one has gainful employment in the USA should also stop. Most people are law-abiding and would not object to adverse legal action in a Federal immigration court against those who have broken Title 8, US Code...
3
Only citizens can vote. Protecting the ballot box from illegal voters is necessary yet Democrats , who want illegals to vote, will do anything to try and gain power , illegal or not. A voter should be required to produce a picture ID ( just like almost every other country including Mexico) in order to vote. The voter registration process must include proof of citizenship. Enough of Democrats trying to stuff the ballot boxes with fraudulent votes as they have in the past with LBJ, Kennedy, Obama.
9
@James
There is virtually zero evidence of voter impersonation fraud. You can count the number on your fingers and toes. But there is ample evidence that voter ID laws suppress access to the ballot box on the part of legal voters.
Your claims of fraud are demonstrably false. Here is just one study of many: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/315914-author-of-study-...
1
The citizenship question is not some evil stratagem dreamed up by Steve Bannon and Kris Kobach. It was first was added to the U.S. census in 1820, when census takers enumerated the “number of foreigners not naturalized.” The citizenship question was asked on most censuses forms until 1950, when it was eliminated because respondents complained the census forms had grown too long. However, the citizenship question reappeared on the census long from in 2000. But the long form was discontinued after the 2000 census and replaced with the annual American Community Survey, which includes the citizenship question. (The ACS –not the decennial census—is now used to allocate federal funds.) The census with the citizenship added would continue to count all residents as required by the Constitution, but would enumerate the number of citizens in each household. Asking the citizenship question would not distinguish undocumented immigrants from foreign nationals residing legally in the country.
The Census Bureau explains the rationale for asking the citizenship questions on its website at https://www.census.gov/acs/www/about/why-we-ask-each-question/citizenship/
10
@William Case
The question itself is not evil, of course. What they are likely to do with the information is. Just this year, this administration was putting children that they could find in cages. They’ll use the census to do something similar.
As for the history and link, all of that is accurate. But, the reason the question isn’t included on the census now boils down to response rates, trust, and eventually, cost. The Census Bureau works hard to make sure they are not burdening people with extra questions. A citizenship question is extra, regardless of whether you like that or not; it will not be used for apportionment, so it is extra. Higher burden lowers response rates which increases costs. Asking information of people that they know you don’t need to do you job lowers trust which lowers response rates which, again, increases costs. The reason the citizenship question is on the ACS and not the census is that is the level of information the government needs to do its job. It doesn’t need a complete list of the citizenship status of every person in the country for anything other than to find people and put them in camps.
4
@Jordan
The primary purpose of the census is to determine proportional representation in the House of Representatives. Do you think illegal immigrants deserve equal representation with U.S. citizens?
1
@Jordan...according to your definition of an "extra" question, most of the census is "extras", and burdensome, because the questions are not used for apportionment.
What can regular people do to ensure a full and accurate census count? What the heck? Just fill out the census form as always, but refuse to answer THAT question. As far as I know, an incomplete census sheet is not an invalidated one. It is simply lacking certain information. My mother always resented the age question, so always put 21+ on it.
4
The most basic of questions in any census is citizenship. I have lived in other countries and received census questionnaires, as well as had people canvas me at home. I always answered that I am a US citizen and they note that down. Why is the US evil for wanting to know who is living within its borders when other countries do it routinely? Seems to me the people who do not want to answer and the organizations that are promoting resistance are in the wrong. I grew up wearing dog tags to school in NY and never thought a thing about it. I also do not understand the resistance to photo ID. If it's too expensive, issue it with welfare or food stamps.
11
The only reason for it is, as already stated, to keep the wealthy white Anglo Saxons in control of the country and the only way to do that is to discredit and destroy the present democratic system and replace it with an authoritarian dictatorship, which is what Trump has been striving for ever since he took office. If he feels he has enough support fromhis base of 40% to 50% of the country he has a good chance of succeeding. The quickest way for him to do it would be to provoke Iran or North Korea into some kind of act that would justify Trump putting the country on a wartime footing and declaring martial law. Under martial law he can do anything, including taking control of all the intelligence services by by declaring that they're subversive and replacing all the top managers with his people, getting rid of Mueller and his investigation, and declaring upcoming elections to be invalid. With the help of his supporters and control of the military he can take total control. If you laugh you haven't been listening to him since he was elected.
13
Immigration status aside, the suggestion that only voters should be counted is draconian. Children, who frequently need government services and have no means of advocating for themselves, would not be counted. This is the true tell than attempts to add questions to the census are a cynical political ploy starve the most vulnerable communities of resources and political clout.
Of course, if we counted them Republican legislators would probably use the information to locate future toxic waste dumps. Or is that being too cynical?
5
NPR had a great fact check article about this topic (below). The citizen question has been on forms before just not the census that goes to all Americans since the 1950s. As long time democrat and liberal, I still can't understand the left's obsession with defending those that enter the country illegally.
If our immigration policies are too stringent, then fight to overturn those policies. The problem is, our policies versus actual behavior when it comes to immigration has been completely schizophrenic for far too long. We have been too lax on H1B visas and on those companies that employ undocumented workers; it has become part of the American business model. So, we've kicked the can down the road and now we find ourselves in a quandary wondering what to do when folks have been here for 20 years, pay taxes, and have families.
https://www.npr.org/2018/03/27/597436512/fact-check-has-citizenship-been...
7
@JeffB
The US Census Bureau is not the immigration enforcement arm of the US government. If ICE wants better data, they can go out and collect it themselves, lots of other agencies do. The Census Bureau’s main mission is to ensure an accurate count of the population in the US once every 10 years, not be used as a tool of immigration enforcement. Becoming a part of immigration enforcement, which is what asking this question in the context of this administration would do, makes their primary mission harder and being associated with ICE in general after what they’ve done this year simply destroys their reputation more broadly.
2
Most in my family of multicultural and media-savvy American citizens are already planning to leave that answer blank. Let them come to our doors and meet the three attorneys in my family just itching for a big fight to protect the immigrant nature and realty of this nation. Bring it on!
4
@left coast finch. just as long as you keep your big fight in your own back yard.
1
Try to imagine what life would be like in United States if the GOP had been able to fully carry out their agenda for the last 100 years. We would be in a country worse than Dickensian England in terms of winner-take-all and utter poverty and disregard for most citizens. All major cities would be grossly polluted. Child labor would flourish. A forced-labor version of slavery would return. There would be no health care except for the rich. And on and on.
9
You know, if a district has a lot of undocumented non-citizens there illegally, and the district factors their numbers into representation based in population, that's definitely a type of voter fraud. When you think that people here in the country illegally can receive 'free' K-12 educations, and other resources, it's kind of shocking the numbers involved. It's not really that defensible in public, which is why most politicians don't want to talk about it. Christ was right. We strain at gnats and swallow camels.
9
No. Jesus would welcome the stranger and advise those without sin to cast the first stone.
Seems like a basic, common sense question to me.
4
@Sue
Then why would it not have ever come up before in the 242 years of census taking?
Seems very odd to me that only when the GOP is in fear of being exposed for its widespread obtaining of office by multiple sources of illegitimate means a major one being fraudulently questioning a persons right to vote) in every state and at the Federal level that "suddenly" we have to worry about whether or not the people who live here are citizens.
We still have to count them and we still have to use the data in the same way so exactly how would knowing whether or not a person was a citizen help?
I would think you'd be assuming anyone whom is not a citizen is not legally present and you would be wrong.
1
The citizenship question, the fate of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and this article bring to mind Dorthea Lange’s striking photograph of five sharecroppers in Texas and the caption.
“All native Americans, none able to vote because of Texas poll tax. All on WPA. They support an average of four persons each on $22.80 a month.”
Maybe that’s where The Republican President and the Republican Party are headed.
11
When Johnson liberalized the immigration law 60 years ago no one imagined the ability of modern medicine to prolong the lives of people in the third world and the capacity of unbridled population growth to destroy the environment in India, Africa, Pakistan, Central America, and southeast Asia. With modern communications these people see no reason they should not be part of the first world they learn about on their cell phones. Why should they put up with corrupt venal governments? Let us stand up for human rights and open the borders completely. Abolish ICE. Why answer any questions on the census which is aimed at limiting benefits to the number of residents. How is that fair? 100,000 recently arrived immigrants from sub Saharan Africa are going to need more government money and services than a community of 100,000 white people. The key to to provide according to need and tax according to ability to pay. Trump is the past and he is a representative of the evil white establishment, Republicans are dying off, vote democratic this year.
1
If the Census includes a citizenship inquiry, then omit it.
1
I'm a white guy and a citizen living in a state that voted for trump. I think I'll pass on this census. Good liberals in trump states should all do the same. It's one way to dilute their electoral college influence.
2
@Neildsmith
How about voting Democrat in November, then having the Electoral college abolished and have a popular vote winner takes all.
1
For Pete’s sake, there’s nothing wrong with asking folks if they’re citizens.
13
America needs to know who is in our country. Legal immigration is good and welcomed. However illegal immigrants in our country just to avoid problems at home is unfair to Americans. These people are just trying to circumvent our laws and take our jobs and overwhelm are social programs. Democrats want these illegals in the country only to tilt the balance of power toward socialism. The census can help us understand just how much of a problem we have. If you want to come to America, do it legally.
6
@Dan Locker
If you live in Syria, nicaragua,venezuela or any country where a significant part of the population is being killed for political reasons you don't have time to apply for a visa to any safe country. You just try as well as possible to protect yourself and your family.
1
@Dan Locker
Are you really afraid of illegal immigrants taking your casual labor job?
well, i personally do not like the question, but i have yet to see a nitty gritty explanation of why it is bad thing. In my experience people who support the census question are usually biased or ignorant. I was around when agribusiness demanded the bracero program, for example. Those folks were definitely not guests.....
2
The citizenship question on the census will let the Republicans steal seats in the House of Representatives from blue states with urban areas and large concentrations of foreign-born people (citizens and otherwise) and effectively award those seats to rural red states (with fewer foreign-borns) that are more likely to vote Republican. I don’t know why the Republicans are pretending that there’s any other reason for the citizenship question, other than that a lot of the undocumented persons are persons of color, who Republicans don’t seem to like very much.
The Republicans have already stolen a Supreme Court pick; I guess it’s becoming a habit to take things that aren’t rightly theirs.
8
@Constance Warner
"The citizenship question on the census will let the Republicans steal seats in the House of Representatives from blue states with urban areas and large concentrations of foreign-born people (citizens and otherwise) and effectively award those seats to rural red states (with fewer foreign-borns) that are more likely to vote Republican."
They can't do that. Period.
1
Enough with political bigotry disguised as a play on citizenship.
Do we really think that the GOP would be so obsessed with citizenship if the potential voters were Republican? It wouldn't even be a discussion.
In hopes of confusing the bigoted conservative masses among us, I am going to self identify as an immigrant (5th generation) from now on. I wonder if, like buying groceries according to 45, I'll need an I.D. to prove my rightful place in this country.
4
I can't agree with the notion that non-citizens should be included in the population count to determine the allocation of congressional seats. Regardless of the wording of the constitution, why should individuals who live here but can't (or shouldn't vote) be allowed to determine the allocation of house seats. The purpose of the house of representatives is to represent the will of the people and by that is meant -- the people who have a legitimate say and right to representation.
It's one thing if the immigrants and illegal immigrants are evenly distributed across the nation. But since we don't know for certain, particularly about those undocumented immigrants, then their over representation in a state -- say CA -- would give CA more influence in national politics.
I know the left doesn't like this, but consider if all the illegal immigrants were in the south and midwest thus meaning that those red states would have increased representation in the house. I don't think libs would be against the idea of identifying who is and who isn't a citizen then.
And why is stopping voter fraud a bad idea. The left has been hysterical for a year and a half that Russia attacked our democracy because they hacked some e-mails and bought some FB ads -- but they didn't steal a vote. But we know voter fraud has happened. It helped elect LBJ to the senate and it may have put JFK in the WH. It happens. It may rarely have an impact but one fraudulent vote is one too many.
11
So if you are a liberal and want to beat this system, if you are opposed to it and in a conservative district, then just do not answer this question. Then you will not count in the right-wing manipulation attempt. If you are an immigrant (Latino) in a liberal area, then lie and say you are a citizen, and you will count for apportionment. This is not in the spirit of the census. But neither is the question - and, while some may say that lieing to the census is a crime (I have no idea), it will not be enforceable, especially is millions of people do it.
4
The question does seem pointless. If you are not will you say so? Unlikely. A bigger question to ask would be. Do you understand the immigration laws of the United States. I suspect a large majority would answer in the negative. Including myself.
4
Here is the heart of article:
The Trump administration is "seeking to redefine and restructure American democracy to preserve their political power at a time when the demographics of this country are changing significantly."
"The census, the independence of the Justice Department and the federal courts, voting rights and voting access — these are all core functions of our democracy that are being weaponized for a partisan agenda, an agenda born out of deep anti-immigrant, anti-people-of-color sentiment."
Meanwhile Trump keeps America worked up with his daily nasty tweets, his race-baiting rallies and his inflammatory attacks on the free Press.
Why are we so gullible?
4
I'm a citizen and a voter. I already feel invisible to my elected representatives as a result of ridiculous gerrymandering and billionaire/corporate money in politics.
Money is not speech and corporations are not citizens.
This census citizenship question is another shameless facet of the right-wing assault on the principles and values that once made America great.
8
The SCOTUS said that states MAY draw districts which include all people; it did not say that they must.
In 1789, there was no difference between citizens and persons. That’s changed, and a living, breathing document needs to account for such changes. Only citizens have the connection to and interest in the polity to deserve representation. And it violates the most fundamental notions of one man, one vote, to have some districts in which a citizen’s franchise is worth substantially more than that of another citizen in another.
Districts SHOULD be based on citizenship.
The subject’s points are well-taken, in some respects: should representation be based on citizens? On citizens of the right age? On registered voters? And ALL of those are legitimate discussions.
But, certainly, restricting representation to citizens is entirely reasonable. It is not “weaponizing” the census; it’s a perfectly rational, eminently reasonable way to ensure that the voice of each American is equal.
One wagers that the subject is a leftist whose political voice depends, in large measure, on rotten boroughs in which one gets elected with a mere handful of votes. (How many votes, precisely, did Ocasio-Cortez receive?)
Just as nations require borders and required a shared sense of nationhood -- in the US, devotion to the principles set forth in the Declaration -- so, too, they can, and should, restrict the franchise to those who share those basic principles: citizens.
8
If you’ve ever researched your family history in this country the question of citizenship is on them along with if you were naturalized or just an alien. Never asked if you were an illegal on it. Citizen or non that was it no big deal. The actual information about individuals themselves is sealed for 70 years. The 1940 census is the most recent one you can research an individual. So how other then statistical information can an individual’s personal information be used? Well it can’t. And personally I think we should know how many citizens and non citizens there are.
No matter what your status you shouldn’t be afraid to answer the census which is required of every person. Stop listening to the far left who want open borders and the right of non citizens to vote. The far right can’t use your infoagainst you personally either you are NOT going to be asked your legal status and for 70 years you’re only numbers to the Federal Government.
This is a red herring to lump the issues of legal immigrants with those who are illegal. Let the government ask I think most people would like to know the statistics I’m thinking it will quiet the fears of many people or perhaps the far left knows something we all don’t. But let’s see anyway. This is a non issue and with immigration such a hot button item citizenship it needs to be asked.
44
@RobS You are correct - 70 years is correct. But, most people do not know that. There is, unfortunately, a basic underlying lack of trust in regards to both Federal and State governments. This is particularly true in our Southern States. My question is - if we did not need citizenship status for over 40 years, why do we need it now? The article clearly point to ulterior motives - and that does relate to redistricting -- then you move on to voter suppression. Leave the citizenship question out of the census.
3
@RobS I was curious to know whether you are correct that census information is inaccessible for 70 years, so I asked Snopes. You are wrong, in fact. Please read here for a correction to your assertions: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/census-bureau-japanese-americans/
Could you clarify what a "far left" is or even a middle left is based on your current principles. Are you far right, which would indicate you are off the road.
Our immigration process is such a mess, we do not even know how many illegal immigrants reside in the US. According to Yale researchers, up to 25 M illegals reside in the US. This is more than double the 11 M figure that is often cited by the press. If true, it represents 7.7% of the US population. This number includes both those who come here illegally and also those who come here legally but then overstay their visa.
It would make sense to many people, if not the author of this piece, that the US government has every right to at least attempt to get a more official count. The allocation of Representatives to the US House should be based upon citizenship and not just residency, legal or illegal.
And yes, the count should help with enforcing voting laws. In Calif, non-citizens are now given the right to vote in local school board elections, and are issued voting ID for this purpose. This is just a first step, everyone knows that this is a shot across the bow, the larger and longer-term goal being to grant voting rights to non-citizens in state and federal elections. People recognize a ruse when they see one. The census questions is a pushback on that and an attempt to bring back control for the benefit of US citizens and not foreign nationals living illegally in the US.
65
@Philly The allocation of representation in this country is the real issue; immigration is the red herring-albeit a shambles. Representation in the congress should be based on POPULATION not some artifact of electoral college. There are states in this country that have the SAME population as some mediium CITIES...yet the representaion of "the people" is the same....that is perverse,
4
@Philly
What's the citation for the Yale study?
@Philly Partial lies and half truths won't hold up. The Constitution says count everyone and Federal Courts have confirmed that the Census must count every person in the US at the time. And California DOES NOT allow non-citizens to vote in ANY election. A LOCAL school board may allow all to vote for their board, since citizen and non-citizen children attend school and so have a stake in who's elected. It wouldn't be my choice, but, hey, this is America, still.
2
If we complete the census as required, but refuse to answer the one question about citizenship, will we still be counted and considered as having complied with the mandate to participate?
6
This article is almost all speculation and fear mongering with accusation as its basis. People are still counted in the census no matter how they answer the citizenship question.
It's a legitimate question for a census. It was there until 50 years ago. Why was it removed? It was there when I was a child, and children are still counted whether they are citizens or not.
What do the census counts of other countries ask? Most nations want to know if a person in their country is a citizen.
4
This issue is a distraction from the real threat. "Real ID" will go into effect in 2020. Real ID will require everyone to get a drivers license with facial recognition. In order to get the license you will have to provide your birth certificate, social security number, finger print and other identifying information. As of the moment you can opt out, but if you do you will not be able to fly domestically. And of course, government will gradually expand the things you will be barred from without Real ID.
It is a truism that all power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But it is also a truism that knowledge is power. Not least is the power to chill.
Does anyone feel secure and free when someone is looking over their shoulder and keeping tabs on them? A chilling effect is far more effective than a punitive jackboot. Cowed people don't have to carted away and punished.
Americans need to rethink whether they want their all too corrupt and fallible government to put what is basically a chip in everyone's ear. Government always comes up with excuses as to why the power and knowledge it demands is necessary. But they are just excuses. If government provided universal health care, free college education, single payer livable retirement, guaranteed jobs, income and housing, I could believe the excuses. But they don't and I don't
9
All the more reason to abolish the Electoral College and treat the vote for the US House of Representatives the same as the vote for US Senators...at large.
11
At the end of the Civil War freed slaves became citizens of the United States. They were not in the country in contravention of the law.
3
According to the IRS website, non-resident aliens are required to file income tax returns and pay taxes on income from wages, tips, scholarships, fellowship grants, dividends, etc.
https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/taxation-of-nonr...
Not counting you on the census seems a bit odd if you're required to file and pay income taxes, even as a non-citizen, I would think.............
Looks like someone is trying to have their cake and eat it, too.
5
The only way that this question could be robbed of its power would be for the citizens to refuse to answer it. The census is for the purpose of counting people, not citizens. When you wonder how you would have acted as a citizen living in Germany during WWII, how you act now is how you would have acted. Standing up to tyranny and the little bites it is taking out of our souls and way of life.
7
gioia99- Legal immigrants and legal visitor's interests are not threatened. They are here legally. I agree with asking the question. We cannot abide an underground culture and economy. If asking makes people here illegally nervous so be it. They should be nervous and they should take the hint to go home.
8
The government should allocate its representation and resources to U.S. citizens, not to people who are illegally in the country.
7
A census is taken every 10 years in accord with the founding principle of our nation; that there must be no taxation without representation. That census is the means by which we count the population of the US, set congressional districts and apportion seats in the House of Representatives.
Although non citizen residents cannot vote for representatives, they do pay taxes and are entitled to representation.
For the Republican Party and Donald Trump to attempt to not count them, or make them too afraid to be counted, is plainly un American and an act of desperation that acknowledges their corrupt attempt to destroy the American democracy.
209
@rich
Who says that people who answer a census are not counted? It's a lie. People are counted whether they are a citizen or not, if they fill out the census form. If they don't they certainly are not counted.
This is a liberal-leftist corruption of the census by spreading false, inflammatory agitation propaganda.
1
@rich...
Since when does the accounting for the legal population of our nation equate to a denial of representation?
Please be specific as you can as the prima facia look at the question reveals that there is NO denial of representation at all.
If the government ACTS to deny is the time to raise the question, not now.
Requesting citizenship status in the decennial census is not that time.
And BTW...The question has been previously asked on the census questionnaire, so new ground is NOT being broken here.
So...What is it that y'all are afraid of having become public knowledge. for fear is clearly what is being expressed not rational construct.
1
Most illegal immigrants do not pay federal income taxes unless they’re using a stolen social security number, which is actually not awesome either...
And somehow I think if you’re afraid to fill out the census you’re probably afraid to fill out a tax return every year too. Sales taxes only go to local and state government FYI.
1
If you do not care about rendering millions of tax payers (including legal immigrants) *politically* invisible, how about your own basic safety? Without an accurate head count, can you be sure that your neighborhood will have a sufficient number emergency response equipment and personnel, such as fire cars? If evacuation is necessary, can you be sure that the roads will be able to bear the flux and allow your family to escape? If there is not enough police to ensure the safety of your city, because many people were simply not counted, will you feel good and righteous about the citizenship question? If the schools in your district are severely underfunded because you did not see why you should count everyone, will that be alright with you?
Don't the civics classes cover the basics of what the constitution requires? How come so many people keep repeating "why not?"
10
There's a legitimate need to know how many people are here, legal or not. If we don't use the census, what would we use? Local alderman estimates? I know there's concern that this info will be shared with ICE. But A "72-Year Rule" prevents the public disclosure of personally identifiable information to any agency until 72 years after its collection. Only the individual named on the record can access the information before the 72-year period. Truthfully there's nothing wrong with asking about citizenship. Canada, Australia & many other U.S. allies do so. The U.S. asked about citizenship for 130 years — from 1820 to 1950 — as part of the decennial “short form” census and continued to do so in the “long form” survey through 2000. So why is the left up in arms over a question that should be relatively uncontroversial? Answer: Money and power. Democrats are worried that adding a citizenship question will dampen participation in the census by illegal immigrants, reducing the total population count in the Democratic-leaning cities where illegal immigrants are largely concentrated. Because census data is used to determine the distribution of federal funds, that could decrease the cities’ share of $675 billion a year in federal funding. And because census data is used to apportion congressional seats, the left fears that if illegal immigrants don’t participate it will shift power from Democratic cities to rural communities, which tend to vote Republican. At least be honest about this.
65
@Bill Brown It's not a matter of being honest on the points you raise, it's a matter that this administration does not care about laws it deems in the way. Like your 72 year example. What? You think the Kavenaugh Court won't find a reason to ignore or change it, given the opportunity?
And just because we did so once upon a time, doesn't mean we should now. Think Plessy v. Ferguson. And in those early citizenship asking years, there wasn't an anti-immigrant fervor - fever? - like there is now in the administration with a track record of diminishing rights.
4
@Bill Brown. absolutely true about the distribution of federal funding. I think few will deny. However if you would put yourself in the shoes of the non-citizens for a second, wonder what you would think and feel if the question was asked of you? Certainly in the climate of growing nationalism and racism in this country and the world, you would have to wonder if somebody was coming for you. So the truth is that the objection to the question is also about protecting non-citizens from harassment. I think it is pretty much everyone knows the left does not want non-documented residents deported. It's not a question of honesty. Everyone knows it.
3
@Bill Brown Frankly, I don't trust this administration to keep the information gathered confidential. I believe they will actively use the individual level data to their own advantage in any number of ways. -- regardless of the 72-year rule.
2
Proponents of this question should ask themselves this:
If the government doesn’t already know who its citizens are, is there any dumber way of identifying them than asking people to self-report?
2
@Bob Richards
"And it wouldn't be much of a stretch for SCOTUS to allow the Congress to determine, that "persons" in the Constitution for purposes of allocating power means people that are here legally and permanently, i.e. citizens and green card holders, thus excluding guests and trespassers."
Ah, persons. It could also mean that the SCOTUS as configured by a batch of conservative politicians could also include corporations as "persons", as Mitt Romney so clearly declared during one of his campaigns. Or if the personhood people get their way, could fertilized eggs be included as people? How do we count that? How do we trust a group of people so intent on straining or perverting the rule of law in this country for their own benefit to represent real "persons"?
Think definitions could get tweaked beyond recognition? Yes, they could. When the waters get intentionally muddy regarding the "what is a person" question, I don't trust the conservatives to be on the side of actual persons, let alone citizens.
The census citizenship question seems harmless to many, but the underlying motives reveal that it will only help select groups gain and retain power they don't really deserve. Ultimately, I believe it will be a means of suppressing the voice of real "persons."
8
Let's get rid of any questions about citizenship. It is divisive. Let us also get rid of any questions about anyone's gender, race, national origin, age or economic status.
These are also divisive. Just count the number of people as the constitution requires.
Problem solved.
10
@Rob
The purpose of having data for gender, race, age are to do statistical analysis in order to assure that the population and it's various needs are addressed. National origin is not asked, only Hispanic or not.
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045217
1
You are absolutely right, Rob. Who do you suppose counted the 'first immigrants' to this country. They came in, made up their rules and squashed the true Americans, Native American Indians who were here for thousands of years. They are the only group who weren't immigrants. Every other person living here today had someone who came from another country in another part of the world.
I weep for what is going on today in this administation!
2
@wanderer We are all humans are needs are basically the same. To split people up is to encourage discrimination.
@Katherine Remember even the "Native American Indians are not native to this nation, they immigrated about 15 thousand years ago.
When someone asks my nationality, I have two answers. I am either Native American because I was born here, or African American because if you go back thousands of generations we all came from Africa.
Anything else are just stops along the way/
Just as a point of information, the census in Canada, which is done every five years, asks about citizenship on the long form (which most people do not receive), but not on the more widely circulated short form.
3
Anyone who wants to can in good faith check yes on the question asking if they are a US citizen. Perhaps not by the definition of certain government agencies and officials, but certainly in a moral and ethical sense. If you live somewhere then you are a citizen of that country. You live, work, abide by the laws, pay taxes, spend money, socialize with other citizens etc. That's should be a good enough definition for anyone.
4
@Ethan - no it isnt enough for anybody -we're talking about legal rights and statuses - who has them, who doesn't.
Accessing legal rights is too important an issue to be left to someones elses subjective loosey-goosey informal "common sense" interpretation.
Legal rights by necessity require clear legal definitions - thats what a Constitution and rule of law are all about.
1
@Andy Demanding human rights and the ability to live peacefully is hardly loosey-goosey "common sense." It's reality for much of the worlds population. Practical considerations put aside, and I admit they are significant, baring free travel of peaceful human beings is against the natural rights of people and trumps the constitution. The laws under the constitution must adapt, not vice versa. However if they don't, the rights should not be surrendered.
1
“And this question is just the beachhead. It goes hand in hand with efforts to purge voters and restrict voting rights; with moves to strip citizenship from American citizens; and with schemes to revoke birthright citizenship, which is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.”
Sounds just like the opponents of gun registration: it’s just the first step to confiscation of guns, ownership of which is guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment. Different issue, different extremists.
Most people in the world would find the census citizenship question reasonable no matter what the imagined, underlying motivation.
5
I'm stunned by how many people think all non-citizens are here illegally. The tone of their comments is frightening and hateful.
The number of foreign-born residents in the US is estimated at 45 million. Not quite half of foreign-born residents (44% or almost 20 million) have become citizens. About 25 million are not citizens. Of these, about 11 million are undocumented. That means the remaining 14 million foreign-born residents of the US are here legally but are not citizens.
I know one who's been here almost 30 years. At first, he didn't think he wanted to become a US citizen. But he married, raised a child, and served his community in a low-paying but stable job. Just when he was thinking of applying, the Bush administration used 9/11 as an excuse to violate international law and to position the US as a hostile force in the world, instead of seizing on global outrage to work toward a new vision of peace. So the resident kept his UK citizenship as a potential way out.
After Bush wrecked the economy, he was raising a high-achieving child on low wages and didn't have the money to become a citizen under Obama. But he thought he would be proud to tell his future grandchildren that he became a citizen under the first woman to be president. Instead he's afraid to call attention to himself by seeking citizenship during a time when nativists are looking for any pretext—maybe speeding tickets in the 90s?—to deport non-citizens.
Bullies are running our country, and it's a horror.
15
@C Wolfe As noted in various NYT articles and other sources, there are millions of illegal immigrants in the US.
1
@Mon Ray
And where in my comment did I say there were no people here illegally? In fact, I state that there are an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants (="millions of illegal immigrants"). I'm aware that some estimates run as high as 25 million, but 11 million is the number I've seen most often.
I am continually surprised at how people on the right can't hold more than two consecutive sentences together as a train of thought even when they're reading statements in print.
And indeed my point was that nativists increasingly lump legal immigrants together with those who are here illegally. This comment is one of the ways they do this: as soon as the subject of immigration comes up, they don't want you thinking about your immigrant grandfather who eventually became a naturalized citizen, or your helpful neighbor who isn't a citizen (but whose documentation status you may not know)—they just want to mumble or snarl about "illegals" as innumerable hordes. They want you to be suspicious of your neighbors.
That is not the way I want to live.
I have no intention of answering the census honestly. If the Trumpers want an undercount, I will add 2-3 people on my census form to compensate. I will under report my income to get more services & funds for my community.
During the 2010 census, there was a bitter fight over asking people their sexuality. I boycotted that census, didn't return the form and just never answered the door for the census taker. Sure, I know they asked the neighbors how many people lived in my household, but unless the census is used in as an honest method to fulfill the constitutional requirement, I have no desire to be honest either.
3
It's not so much the question of my citizenship as it is who is asking for it, why they want it, and what they will do with the information. Why on earth should we trust this administration to use this data in an ethical manner? I don't.
29
I can answer that one for you, from experience:
"If we refuse to answer that question will our census forms still count? Will we be prosecuted?"
Over the decades, I've "neglected" to answer several questions, and nobody has knocked on my door or sent me a nasty letter as a result. A particularly irksome question for me has been the one asking my nationality. The question is followed up by numerous suggested answers, including "Aleut Islander." Having learned as a child that all people are to be treated equally regardless of background, my "nationality" always strikes me as irrelevant. I usually don't answer this question at all, or I check the box for "Other" and write in "American." Frankly, many of us don't know our "nationality" any more precisely than that; nor should it matter.
On the other hand, all of this concern about a citizenship question strikes me as misplaced. I've often been asked, on California state forms: "Are you a U.S. citizen?"
Bottom line, though: If you don't want to answer some question on the census form, don't. Nothing will happen to you.
8
@MyThreeCents When someone asks my nationality, I have two answers. I am either Native American because I was born here, or African American because if you go back thousands of generations we all came from Africa.
Anything else are just stops along the way/
2
I have no problem trying to verify that people who live here are citizens, or knowing what their status is: Visa, In process, Illegal (probably won't get too many) But, what I think is much more important, is knowing how many of our Representatives, in all layers of our government, hold Citizenship in other countries. If you are a member of Congress, for example, and are voting on matters of Foreign Aid, Military Arms sales to a Foreign Nation, Tariffs or Committing our soldiers to combat, We Should Know, if you have any allegiance to another country. I think that is more significant than knowing if the Pizza Delivery Guy or the Woman doing your nails is fully documented.
5
What is wrong in asking someone "are you a citizen"? Banks ask the question when you apply for mortgage. Many States have implemented "real id" which denotes citizenship status.
The information gathered will help the Government is an era of big data, AI, to understand and plan for benefits to citizens like Healthcare, Social Security, etc.
I also think this has a tacit support of black leaders (i have not heard a dissent yet), because they are largely citizens and can use the federal funds for schools, after school programs, better technology for policing etc.
Chicago is trying to reduce crime by integrating technology and smart policing, funds from census data will help.
10
@Gyns D
Have you read the article? There are some bullet points here:
1. States already have citizenship data.
2. The data is being weaponized against people of color via gerrymandering.
3. DACA is an example as how the government collects their citizenship status and then now the Trump's people use that data to hunt and deport dreamers.
4
What next? Do they want to know our religion or lack thereof? Whether we volunteered for the military or demonstrated against the illegal wars this nation has engaged in lately? Whether we support football players who kneel during the anthem? I don't trust this administration with any information about me, and lord knows they're collecting enough of it as it is.
35
@Martha Shelley
I want to know the names of all the "Bone Spur Draft Dodgers".
3
The citizenship question was added in “bad faith"? Is that all one can say?
Bad faith is where the crimes only begin. It’s a rhetorical device that lacks the power to consider what's still to come. We have seen clear steps to undermine the rights enshrined in our Constitution.
What should we expect from routine presidential violations of the emoluments clause of the Constitution?
What should we expect from the attempted nullification of the separation of church and state in banning specific religious groups from entry?
What should we expect from removing officials for following where evidence of criminal acts leads them?
What should we expect from an Administration that separated babies by force from their mothers and fathers just to set an example?
What should we expect from a president who labels honest reporters as "enemies of the American people"?
Where will this “bad faith” lead us?
27
@David Potenziani. Considering the facts that the government already has citizenship records and that the people who want the question asked want an undercount of non-citizens the conclusion is pretty clear.
The trump administration is acting in bad faith.
12
@David Potenziano It is pretty clear where this is leading us. It is an incremental onslaught on the Constitution and democracy. It is increasing restructuring financial systems to dismantle the public sector in favor of privatization. It will increase the gap between the rich and poor. Quality of life experiences are increasingly expensive. Soon we will be charging for any public service. There was a time when I thought of myself as a citizen and a patient. We are perceived in this corporatization as consumers...overloaded with materialism and sales as the government removes any and all protections. Multiculturalism terrifies this minority of legislators. Having grown up in a white suburb during the 50's, it was of great joy to move to a culturally diverse city where I learned more of the world and began to travel....a blessing.
3
Everyone should tick the "yes" box to avoid cuts in aid to states with large numbers of legal residents who are not citizens, and to stop the data being used to gerrymander or suppress voter turnout.
6
@expat..you may want check on the consequences of lying in a federal document.
2
The question is completely benign. Persons in the USA unlawfully and their families with lawful non-citizen residents will not respond to the Census no matter what. The questions make no difference at all.
But, response by citizens will be good and the federal government will get a good count of American citizens.
20
@Burton. The government has complete records showing who our citizens are. Birth certificates and naturalization records are all it needs for this purpose.
There is no legitimate reason for the question.
15
actually, in places where there is an undercount, there is a direct count using Census takers, although that is being limited by budget constraints. That will result in a federal official, a Census Taker, going door to door and asking someone face to face if they are a citizen. They can't really refuse to answer.
3
@Burton
No--go look at the actual question, it is multi-part.
It is an obvious effort to divide those who are citizens into different "statuses." It will make it obvious who immigrated and applied. It's very suspicious.
I will not be answering these citizenship questions if they're on the form.
2
The Census will be taken in 2020. The redistricting and other use of the information will begin in 2022. With any luck, the current administration will be gone for at least two years. The question about citizenship might not matter so much then, but we can't count on that.
4
The author asks, "What can regular people do to ensure a full and accurate census count?" But no answer is given.
What should we do? Should we ignore the question? Leave it blank?
13
My opinion is that this particular question should be ignored - fill in the rest, but refuse to answer the citizenship question. That is if it gets on the census at all.
7
@Lenny Simple. Answer the question truthfully.
3
I for one will answer this question. I am a citizen and I think that this is a perfectly suitable question to ask on the census. I understand that it had been part of the census in the past. I see no problem with it.
31
The only reason not to ask is to allow monies to flow to non citizens, taxpayer monies, and to let them vote. I can't see any downside to asking the question. Why dole out money or political power based on a count that includes non citizens? When the country was founded everyone here was a defacto citizen for the first census. This is no longer nor can it be again, the case.
22
@DJ Non-citizens can include students here legally, workers sent here by foreign companies, and even diplomats! Are we not supposed to be aware of and provide services to these people? The question is being put on the census for nefarious purposes only. I can only hope that the courts won't allow it or that when the Democrats win the House and or Senate that they vote to take off the question.
35
@CJ
Diplomats here under diplomatic passports are NOT bound to reply to the census and apportioning, say, Maryland or Virginia based on including them in the census would be a direct insult to the rights of being an American citizen and the right to substantially equal congressional representation.
Further, no diplomat, no matter how friendly or supportive that their country might be, has an business having an influence over the domestic politics of our nation...If you think otherwise, then the accusations of Russian interference in our elections become moot because it would only be a different side of the same coin.
You offer no legitimate reason why the question shouldn't be asked when, clearly, knowing such information would be useful to the federal and state governments in addressing the problems that face our nation.
Are you against having government...and The People...knowing just how many non-citizens are in our country?
Now, if you were asking the questions as to whether they were illegal entrants or overstayed their visas, that would be a different question.
But this is not what you are contending, now, is it?
There are thousands of people here, non-citizens, legally. And, yes, there are thousands of people here illegally. But guest workers, and illegal immigrants as well, have children who go to our schools, who live in houses or apartments that might need fire protection, who need to be able to receive protection from crime by our police officers, who should be able to read a book in our libraries, who should be able to drive on our roads and highways. And, also yes, who should be able to be represented by elected officials when their interests are threatened.
8
I'm concerned that domestic and/or foreign hackers will alter the results of the census. Is someone looking into this?
5
@Dr. OutreAmour...
One would think that would be high on the list of concerns for Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer...
But as of this writing, only the crickets are chirping...and even they are rather subdued.
2
I almost laughed out loud at the idea that legislators represent everyone in their districts, not just citizens. Isn’t it pretty to think so. I’m a democrat in Texas. My concerns and priorities haven’t been represented in decades. According to Republican rhetoric, “the people” demand the Republican agenda. With the electoral college system, my vote is irrelevant. Even as a citizen and registered voter, I’m disenfranchised.
86
@Welsh Harpy...According to the Constitution of the United States, which has been operative since 1787, your role in the electoral college system, you vote IS irrelevant in terms of the selection of president by the States.
Your vote IS relevant as to how your states vote in the system...
Which is exactly what our federal system under our representative form of federal republic says your vote is supposed to be.
Remember. We are the United STATES of America, not a United Peoples' Republic.
Re-read our constitution in that context and you might have less inaccurate understanding as to what our federal government, its institutions, and its processes are all about.
@Welsh Harpy Readers should know that this comment is substantially misleading. Texas is very Blue in the same sorts of places that are Blue throughout the USA, the big cities. A large plurality of Texans live in Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and El Paso. U.S. House districts in these cities have produced liberal members for decades. Texas's big cites lead the nation in having had minority and/or LGBT senior elected and appointd officials. Houston is very Blue, Welsh Harpy's fellow travelers have been running Houston for 20 years, at least.
1
Instead of wrangling over the citizenship question perhaps they should be more concerned about the census forms reaching every household. I'm 73, and the only census form I ever received was in 2010. Many other people have experienced the same thing.
16
@Carole A. Dunn...
Interesting...I have received a census form ever since I moved from my parents home at the age of 20. That will make this year's census the 14th in which I have participated.
The most reasonable answer to the issue that you see is that someone else received, filled out, and submitted the census questionnaire that was received at the address at which you live. You do not require first-hand knowledge to be counted.
Note that official Census Bureau forms are delivered to places of abode, not to individual people.
4
@Carole A. Dunn The "head of the household" is asked to fill out the census form for everyone in the house. Could it be that your husband filled out the census form for you prior to 2010 and, when you were unmarried, your parent answered for you? In that case, you would have been unaware of receiving a census form
Why not complete all questions relating to citizenship with YES? This will nullify the intent of these questions. If enough people respond this way, we are in fact, making it irrelevant.
7
@BR
According to Title 13, Section 221 (Census, Refusal or neglect to answer questions; false answers) of the United States Code, persons who fail or refuse to respond to the mail-back census form, or refuse to respond to a follow-up census taker, can be fined up to $100. Persons who knowingly provide false information to the census can be fined up to $500. The Census Bureau points out online that under Section 3571 of Title 18, the fine for refusing to answer a bureau survey can be as much as $5,000.
18
@William Case
I would love to see how they would enforce that. I also think that skipping one question on the survey - out of all those questions - will not result in anything - except devalidating that questions's results.
1
@john cunningham
Good point...but you know that this Admin would figure a means to enforce the law on the most vulnerable. They'd send battalions of census takers to suspect neighborhoods, etc...and shake the trees bare.
1
One of the most important question for the census is citizenship.
This is common sense for most Americans.
When Democrats are shocked that many moderates and independents won't vote for Democrats, they should remember the nonsensical positions that the Democrat party has embraced.
35
@jck
What nonsensical positions?
Overall, which of the two major parties have the best positions for a democracy?
Which post pushes positions that benefit the wealthy at the expense of the non wealthy?
Which seem to believe that essential services (food, clothing shelter, disease care) should be up to the individual adult or child to provide for themselves?
3
@jck...
But what is common sense for most Americans is not common sense for social justice warriors and illegal residents.
For the former, admitting it to be common sense would take away the emotional blackmail route to achieving that which they can't through the ballot box.
For the latter it is not common sense because it would be partial admission of their guilt for being here without legal authority.
When viewed through the lens of reality, the leftist position that both these groups embrace, it is more t than logical as it would show highlight some of the scams that they are trying to sell the Citizen Americus in order to achieve their ends by deceit.
1
@jck If it was so important to our government...why have they only provided lies as their justification? We should oppose this question strictly on principle.
1
Who cares? It has been done before. And I bet few are actually going to be truthful in any case. You fill out your form and very few get a personal visit either. Making way too much out of something that should be nothing.
6
"Making way too much out of something that should be nothing." ...explaining your preoccupation with the issue. Benghazi!
4
With motives like ethnic cleansing, redesigning the electoral landscape to suit the partisan eeds, reducing the citizenship status of ethno-religious minority groups to the second class citizens, and holding a perpetual threat of expulsion/deportation to select sections of the cizenery could be clearly seen behind the thinking of adding the citizenship status question to the 2020 national census. It is a mischievously conceived unconstitutional act of the Trump administration with an aim to convert the rule of law guided liberal and inclusive American democracy into a Republican party cabal managed and guided exclusivist democracy.
Interestingly, a similar exercise with the similar goals in mind is under way in India too on the pretext of updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC) behinning in Assam and likely to be extended to the other states also. The striking parallels indeed between the world's oldest democracy (US) and the largest democracy(India).
39
Having a citizenship question on a census is actually a very reasonable thing to do. Any other country which does a census would do that.
If people who are in the U.S. illegally don't want to be counted, that their choice.
41
I was in this country for many years as a legal non citizen with a green card. As a non citizen, I knew I couldn’t vote and I never once voted or tried to vote.
I find it curious that people assume that non citizens are showing up in droves to vote. We would probably have a different president if more citizens had shown up to vote. I think we have other issues influencing our election than non citizens trying to vote.
Very few people realize that there are many people who live in this country legally but are not citizens. They pay taxes and contribute to their communities in the same way that citizens do. The only difference is they are not allowed to vote in an election. If someone checks they’re not a citizen on this census, they won’t know if the person is here legally or not. You then have placed all non citizens in the same category. What then?
48
"Any other country which does a census would do that".
And how, dear, "would" you know that?
By the way, millions of legal residents can't vote, yet they pay taxes to Uncle Sam and are represented by their respective representative in their statehouse and in Congress.
4
Not so...one responds because the constitution says to. @liberty
Not answering some questions will not jeopardize the mission of the census, nor will it constitute a violation of laws I don't believe.
There used to be a metaphor for the America which has not been used in recent years, perhaps even forgotten. Remember "America is a melting pot" expression? I wonder if the contents of the pot has crystallized and hardened into two chunks?
15
@Cemal Ekin
The US is not a melting pot and never has been. Certain groups have always been excluded from the "pot". The government promotes some groups over others and it is causing problems. Some people do not want to assimilate into the "melting pot" and others believe they are superior and do not need to blend in.
2
The census is also of vital interest to businesses in this country. Where do we place the next cell tower? The next fast food restaurant? The next bank branch? Should the fast food site be used for a taqueria or a barbecue joint? All these questions can be made easier with legitimate and accurate census counts.
Siting fire stations, roads and libraries also rely on census data.
None of these services are limited to citizens or just voters. Get over it, Mr. Kobach.
90
@Douglas McNeill The census should be limited to its constitutional purpose, eliminate all those other questions and the massive number of employees that process them. If any data is needed private companies can get it and those that need it pay for it.
9
I'm an immigrant who lived here for nearly two decades before I felt strongly about my loyalty to the United States and traded in my green card for citizenship. I'm also English-speaking, tall, white, and educated. None of these things makes me a better human being, but all of them put me in the "not one of them" category in conversations about immigration.
But something has changed. I still live here, but am no longer at home.
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@KJ
I waited one decade to become a citizen, mainly to be able to vote in the country I live in, am white from Old Europe, and have learned English in school as one of three foreign language, yet speak with a slightly British accent.
Not being "one of them" became very clear when I dared to criticize anything about my adopted country, the unfettered access to guns, the still quite overt racism, the lack of decent healthcare, etc., etc., I was told by "them" to go back to where I came from since I don't like it like.
7
A little Knucklebalm, judiciously applied, will greatly reduce that irritation.
@KJ The lawlessness , massive illegal immigration, protests against enforcement of the law are out of control. It is time that we elect legislators who will pass strict laws and severe punishment for those breaking our immigration laws and yes, build the wall. You came legally with a green card, the line jumpers don't care about the rules, and democrats are encouraging the criminal activities.
3
I suggest, instead of boycotting the census, everyone simply say 'yes' to the question no matter what their citizenship status.
76
The census doesn't need to include that question.That is the best way to address the issue.@Dr. OutreAmour
1
@Dr. OutreAmour Right. In fact let’s lie to every question that is presented.
1
@Dr. OutreAmour Better yet--everyone say they are not a citizen.
The census is like a labor union insofar as it gives power to the people. We need to go a step further by having each person sign into a non-profit service that makes sure each citizen is registered to vote and that their names have not been purged. That service would send emails to its subscribers to remind them to vote. Non-citizens can legally vote in many state and local elections, so the citizen question ought not to prevent all the people who live in this country from being counted. As Trump dismantles the Federal Government, the State and local ones will have more power. On the one hand, Trump is elevating the significance of citizenship but on the other, he is reducing the impact that citizens have in Federal matters. The other voter-roll is the power of the dollar and non citizens can make themselves heard by voicing their displeasure that way too.
9
@Max & Max A sure way to get the Russians to actually change our election systems is to have them in any way connected to the internet. No portion should have any electronic connection to any network.
7
@Max & Max I am not sure about NYS but I believe in most if not all states, you have to be a citizen to vote in state and local elections too.
2
@Max & Max . The pretend president must have many puppeteers pulling the strings because, frankly, he is not smart enough to pull off such a plan.
1
The article states "there is only one constitutional purpose for the Census" i.e. to allocate seats in the House of Representatives (and by extension, the Electoral College). I agree.
An "originalist" interpretation of the census clause would say that the use of the word "people" rather than "citizens" or "people entitled to vote" is determinative.
Any other interpretation would take into account changes in American society during the past 240 years--and this seems unacceptable to most commentators here.
I find this strange, given the almost unanimous condemnation of the "originalist" constitutional interpretation by those same commentators.
15
@frugalfish Unfortunately "people" count everyone here, not just citizens according to a supreme court decision.
2
@frugalfish Have there been changes in the nature or understanding of being a person -- a living human being-- that have taken place over the centuries?
There have been changes in the understanding and clarifications of the nature and rights of citizenship over the years, but not even the kinkiest of anti-choice religious zealots claim that fetuses should be considered persons for census purposes.
@frugalfish Prior to the American Civil War, slaves were counted as 3/5 citizens, but they were counted. In fact, if you made it to this country from your country of origin, you were pretty much a citizen. This new question seeks to not count everyone on purpose. Steve Bannon, Wilbur Ross, and Eric Kobach are known white supremacists as is our President. Apartheid is what they seek. They want everything to be the way it used to be in their old world order minds.
If you are concerned, and if you want leave a comment for the federal government expressing your concerns and thoughts about the 2020 census, here is a link to a site to do just that:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/06/08/2018-12365/proposed...
12
@Ellen Thanks for the link! I just finished submitting a comment.
Thank you Ellen I submitted my comment that I agree with having the question on the census. appreciate the link.
1
Or, you could save time by pitching those comments, thoughts and concerns in the circular file. Or, Lord Lardbottom's evil minions will do it for you if you prefer.
What is so strange and sinister about a government wanting to know how many and who within its borders are citizens of the nation? All permanent residents who live here legally, whether born here or not, and without regard to country of origin, have the right and opportunity to become citizens. That is what matters.
41
@Penseur Not really true. Just the process of applying for citizenship with our present government puts a person's built up life at risk. When we see our government kicking out non-citizens who have served in the armed forces solely because they are non-citizens.....would any of us have a chance? The Trump government is kicking out people who had misdemeanors decades ago....using them as an excuse.
1
@Penseur
What is sinister is that a cabinet secretary would knowingly lie to Congress about where the request originated and the true purpose of asking the question. What matters is that those running this administration uphold the Constitution. I have no doubt that if the anti-immigrant faction in this administration gets its way, they will eliminate birthright citizenship, which would mean that the children born in this country would not be citizens unless one of their parents were--including parents who were legal immigrants. That would fundamentally change this country.
3
The Govt. already knows (on a macro level) the status of all the peoples who have been issued Visa’s and Permanent Residency status. Via the ports-of-entry they know who has come in and left the country. Is it really important for the Fed Govt to know the status of every person by city/town/county? I can’t think of how that info would be used for anything but discrimination and intimidation.
As indicated, a main concern is that non-citizens would avoid returning the census thereby resulting in a lower count for that person's district, which would result in less funding for that district.
What would be the effect of returning the form but not answering the citizenship question? Would the vote suppressors then have reason to force the census people to ignore such returns? Never discount the likes of groups like ALEC to fashion orders or court cases to do so.
13
@Bartolo I think a lot of the census will be online this time which may mean they will program it to MAKE you answer that question to submit it . . . just guessing here but think it's likely.
1
@Spring Texan It's possible there will be an option to respond online, but residents cannot be compelled to answer in that fashion. To get as complete a participation as possible, it must be available to people without access to the internet. (And I understand the irony of that last sentence, considering the desire of GOP hardliners to suppress participation among certain populations.)
@Spring Texan I hope none is "online" if it is Russians might increase or decrease our counted population.
The census should be no more than a head count. Period. All the demographics is best collected by private business. The latter would be more cost effective.
The constitution mandates a head count. I don't recall it mandating or allowing gerrymandering. This is a practice that needs to be stopped. Why the courts haven't put a stop to gerrymandering is a puzzle.
As for voting rights and registrations, the states already know who we are, where we live and how we vote. Registration to vote should be automatic. Show up at the polls and vote. It's that simple, in theory.
20
Republicans are very, very good at packaging and marketing a scheme which in the end sounds very logical and forthright, but in the end, benefits the wealthy and disadvantages the poor and people of color. And often the marketing causes these groups to vote against their own best interests.
59
@Hootin Annie . What can one expect from a party, who, at the end of WW2, considered the GI Bill to be Welfare. If the GOP ever had any honor at all it has since disappeared.
1
On the face of it, the question of citizenship seems reasonable.
However there can be no doubt that the true motivation of this administration is certainly to restrict voting rights and to discourage participation by minorities.
It is not clear from the article whether there is a sound legal argument beyond the suspected motivation, and whether the emails are sufficient to convince a judge to strike down the question on the census.
12
That is silly. Many citizens are minorities. if you are a minority citizen you can vote and you should be participating fully in civic life with no questions asked. But if you are not a citizen, and not here legally, you should go home, not provide extra representation to your district. Working on seeing there are equal right for all citizens must come before pandering to those here illegally.
3
You have to hand it to the radical white supremacists - they have literally thought of everything in their effort to maintain a death grip on power. It's ironic in the extreme that the very ideology that insisted on slaves being counted as two thirds a human being (rather than be excluded entirely) in order to gain seats in congress for the slave holders is now seen as "counterproductive". If only they could have won the war and kept them down on the plantation. Oh, wait - the war isn't over. Not by a long shot. At least, not in certain quarters. Tragically, right now that quarter happens to occupy the federal government. And it's literally a quarter - of the voting population. And we call that "democracy".
69
Yes, it's clear they want to use citizenship to apportion representation in congress.
I firmly believe the framers intended that.
25
I firmly believe some people misinterpret the role citizenship plays in the census.
15
@Dave >"Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons."
Nowhere does this refer to state of citizenship except that it includes "indians not taxed", who ARE NOT citizens.
I firmly know that the framers did not intend that.
16
@Dave Regardless of what you may want to "firmly believe," the Constitution is explicit that representation in Congress is based on free Persons, excluding Indians who aren't taxed, and three-fifths of persons who are not free. Zero mention of citizenship.
11
Our Government wants to know your citizenship status, because it is a reasonable question to ask
Who lives in our country, and who are we?
Surely a census is about more than a simple count?
41
The census was not designed to count citizens, it was designed to count heads, that's it. There are plenty of other ways to determine citizenship status or didn't you read the article?
55
@Rob Campbell According to the Constitution, the census is only about a simple count. All the other questions, as helpful as they may be for other purposes, are superfluous. And if any of them affect the accuracy of the primary and sole purpose of the census, to count heads, they do not belong.
Please. NOTHING this administration has done since its inception has had any reasonable basis. The “basis” of the Census is apportionment of representation in the house and allocation of resources based on headcount, not citizenship. That’s old news—as old as the nation itself, as the framers conceived it. The demographic trajectory of differential birth rates between the so called “nativists” (and we know they’re anything but, right?) and populations of color is an inconvenient reality. Republicans are determined to hold on to every vestige of wealth and power they possibly can until the tipping point is reached and all their voter suppression weapons are still not enough. Maybe at that point they will elect to move to reservations.
1
If the question is allowed, then an additional question needs to be on the ballot: Are you registered and allowed to vote in your state?
In that way we can remove all the non-citizens as well as those actual citizens who aren't allowed to vote from the House calculation as called for by the 14th Amendment.
Consider all those states with huge prison populations, highly restrictive voting laws, that also have large delegations in the House. It cuts both ways.
6
There is another survey going out from the "US Department of State Office of Passport Services" the we just got in the mail. It states that the Dept of State "would like to better serve the American public's need for passport services in the coming months and years." Supposedly our household "was selected at random" to do a survey. There are several questions in it that ask whether and when people in our household will need "passport services", and it contains citizenship and race questions, among others -- multiple answers are there for respondents to check the box that is correct for them. There are some questions with an option for answering "refused". Never saw this questionnaire before; but, why also is this being done under a .com website, coming from Dept. of State? It actually reminds me of this census question that people are worried about; and I wonder if it is a back-door way to find out similar information.
21
@Cecilia it would be interesting to know who actually financed this -- Americans for Prosperity, etc. Some state attorneys general should look into this as it is illegal to represent yourself as the government when you AREN"T.
15
@Cecilia Just went to the State Department website. It appears that passports are handled by the Bureau of Consular Affairs. It would seem that is a bogus survey as others have stated. If you complete that survey, you will get on the mailing list of every conservative group in the states. Place the survey in your recycling container.
1
Please check that the survey IS from the State Dept. sounds fishy.
Would Melania be allowed to vote under the proposed Trump administration scrutiny?
Trump is cracking down on immigrants at the border, abusing children and families with a total lack of humanity. Trump policy is also going after those with citizen and green card status whose applications are being re-evaluated for discrepancies.
A question that many are asking with good reason is whether or not Melania's current status in the US would stand up to the same thorough re-investigation of her immigration history and the citizen status of her parents that is currently being applied under Trump's edicts. The Associated Press reported before the 2016 election that Melania Trump had been paid for modeling jobs in 1996 before obtaining legal permission to work in the United States. She worked while on a visitor visa before she obtained a work visa later that same year. It is fraud to say you intend only to be a visitor in the United States while having explicit plans to work. This legal violation can have a major impact on future immigration status. If other immigrants are being questioned, why not fully re-examine Melania's status?
132
Melania's been showing her distaste for the Donald's antics for some time now. To go after her will not punish Donald in the least. He'll throw her under the bus - no problem. He will just go get another beautiful, immigrant wife (how many wives has he had so far?). Ivanka's mother was an immigrant too, remember? It gives him leverage over them.
Of course, Melania would be an exception.
1
I've "neglected" to answer census questions many times, and plan to do so in the future:
"I believe that there may be several questions on the upcoming U. S. Census that I will 'neglect' to answer."
The Census always asks for nationality, helpfully offering choices such as "Aleut Islander." For several decades, I've "neglected" to answer that question, among others. Nobody has ever come knocking on my door as a result.
37
I've lived in San Francisco for several decades. Just yesterday I filled out and mailed in a CA government form. One of the questions was: "Are you a U.S. citizen?" The choices were "Yes" and "No." I checked the "Yes" box, signed the form and mailed it to the State of California.
I don't know what the State of California plans to do with that information, but clearly the US government is not the only one asking that question.
30
Of course, it is asinine for "we, the people" or the people of any nation to allocate political power among themselves in proportion to the number of persons that happen to be in the nation when the count is made when "we" know that there are millions of people in the nation that are not only not citizens but not even invited guests. And it in insulting to the Founders that they determined that that is what should be done when at the time we did not have an immigration law but essentially open borders. Anyone who wanted to come here could come and become a resident and in fairly short order become a citizen and if an adult male gain the right to vote. And we didn't have a really restrictive law until 1890 or so and the laws that we did have were effectively enforced until the late 20th century so we didn't have a substantial number of people here that were in effect uninvited guests, or trespassers. So the notion that the Constitution should be interpreted to preclude the government from somehow determining the legal status of who is in the country and where they are living in order to determine how political power should be allocated among us would be asinine as well. And it wouldn't be much of a stretch for SCOTUS to allow the Congress to determine, that "persons" in the Constitution for purposes of allocating power means people that are here legally and permanently, i.e. citizens and green card holders, thus excluding guests and trespassers.
23
@Bob Richards Whatever happened to originalism? The Founders didn't intend it, so therefore we have to go with what the Founders did intend. Isn't that the Republican SCOTUS logic in a nutshell?
@Bob Richards Hopefully, it would be stretch for SCOTUS to change the way congressional representation is allocated, since it's written in the Constitution. If you want to change it, you first have to change the Constitution.
@Bob Richards So the Constitution must be interpreted in the light of current conditions. So you don't hold with the Originalist position.
You must be a liberal.
1
I am a natural-born, Caucasian, heterosexual, college educated, homeowning, upper middle class, female, American citizen who votes in every election, no matter how small. I am grateful for the right to vote and see voting as a critical and essential part of my civic responsibility.
Women's right to vote in the USA was a difficult battle and was a long time in coming. Frankly, I do not understand why every woman in the USA who is entitled vote does not vote in every election.
However, after reading this article and the comments, I believe that there may be several questions on the upcoming U. S. Census that I will "neglect" to answer. There should no repercussions regarding re-districting in my state as long as I am counted as a person -- regardless of my USA birthright citizenship, sexual preference, education, gender, homeownership, and financial status.
92
@SJHS
I would like to "neglect" these questions too but what happens if you do? Does a census taker come to your door? If you still decline to answer have you broken the law? - or are you just left out of the census?
1
Ah, yes, the Gupta Grand Collective thesis: "They’re seeking to redefine and restructure American democracy to preserve their political power at a time when the demographics of this country are changing significantly."
How is a nation that knows where the citizens are and to what degree redefining and restructuring the "American democracy"?
The polis is the citizens. Number of citizens 18 years old or older in a given county and the number of votes recorded--easy-peasy.
But Gupta is correct--the demographics are changing as a result of the DNC and RNC Politburos' decades-old "blind-eye" to open borders for selfish reasons, both. But point of fact, only citizens have the right to vote, so exactly "what is changing"--the notion of a Grand Collective of sovereignty?
As long as only citizens vote, the globalist Grand Collective remains a fantasy, at least in the USA.
18
If the concept of citizenship is to have any validity or meaning at all, having the government get a snapshot of who is or who isn't a citizen once a decade is one useful piece of data in the overall shifting demographics of American society. It is not unreasonable to determine, for example, that 80% of the census respondents are citizens. Otherwise, just count everybody, as the Constitution is written and abolish citizenship altogether.
20
@Patrick: : "Just count everybody" indeed; that's exactly what the Census is required to do. Much of that other stuff, such as citizenship, is addressed by the ACS. I got that much by reading the article; I suggest you do the same.
32
From European Commission, Eurostat--data they collect and seek:
"Population characteristics: population figures by educational attainment, marital status, citizenship and country of birth are available. The characteristics of the population can be followed also by citizenship and country of birth. (Data availability is subject to the completeness of reporting by the countries.)"
"Acquisitions of citizenship of persons having their usual residence in a country: one of the factors that explain how the foreign population of a country changes are the acquisitions of citizenship. Data on acquisitions of citizenship is available by age and sex, and by former citizenship of the persons concerned, also if the person was formerly stateless."
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/population-demography-migration-project...
Not everybody is so wary of asking about citizenship re population data.
18
@Joshua Schwartz There's a difference between an economic cooperative comprised of several nations asking this question versus an individual country doing so. In this instance European Commission members agreed to this construct. In the U.S., we follow our hierarchy of laws, and the supreme law of the land is our Constitution, which requires lawmakers to represent every single person in their district, not just citizens. We also have a process for amending the Constitution, but the people behind this movement know that they won't be able to do that, so they are trying to do it through a back door approach.
9
My bet is that most citizens wouldn't mind answer the question of citizenship in a once-in-10 year census survey. It is not the question of why, but the government should know about it. Things change. Why make such a simple task so complicated? Again I guess some people do have a devious mind.
11
@Usok: Project much? The paper trail left by this administration illuminates the very origin of the deviousness. You may willfully choose to ignore it, and even to misrepresent it here, but you can't change it. We all know that citizenship is already asked by the ACS, so there's no purpose in adding it to the Census, except as a poison pill.
4
The 1940 census asked the state or country of birth.
That is all the government needs to know.
The 1940 census also asked where individuals lived on April 1, 1935. This is the question that should be on the 2020 census. It yields much more information about the evolution of our demographics than asking about citizenship.
Former residence questions bring joy to family historians, too. The value of census information lives long, long after redistricting and distribution of federal $$ to cities, counties and states.
Genealogists, 72 years from now when the information becomes public, would much rather know where that ancestor lived in 2015 than citizenship status (which is available from other records).
7
FYI: As far as I can see, from a copy of a 1940 census, question 15 is place of birth; question 16 is "citizenship of the foreign born." My Swedish and Greek grandmothers are listed as AL - alien, and my Greek grandfather is listed as NA - naturalized. That citizenship box is left blank for my other grandfather, who was born in Virginia. I am not a Trump supporter, and the census to me has always been creepy and intrusive, and not always accurate. In 1930, my great aunt was the "half sister" of her partner, a woman who was "born in Virginia". This was odd, since her partner claimed to have submitted her papers in the 1920 census. By 1940, her partner was born in Scotland and naturalized. My guess is that my aunt lied, since her partner's Scottish accent would have given her away.
6
Vanita Gupta has the basics correct. In 1790 women couldnt vote; slaves were not citizens and could not vote. But the first census counted these people, plus children, native Americans and others who were not citizens or could not vote. For apportionment purposes 60% of the total of slaves would be counted for state apportionment - but of course slaves were not voters or citizens. Thus this entire line of GOP investigation has another purpose. The destruction of American democracy and the restriction of voting rights. The GOP's plan to be viable is to change the rules and destroy democracy and allow minority governments.
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@Fla Joe
Challenging conclusion: "Thus this entire line of GOP investigation has another purpose. The destruction of American democracy and the restriction of voting rights." Exactly how does knowing how many citizens live in any given county the "destruction of American democracy" and even more absurd "the restriction of voting rights"?
Wherever did you learn this--an American university Maoist reeducation camp?
1
@Fla Joe
I found it ironic and a bit sick that effectively the same group of people, ideologically, wanted slaves to be counted as residents (I would say they technically existed, not resided...) for apportionment purposes before the Civil War, and then afterwards campaign to keep "others" from being counted.
Imagine if the Democratic Party suggested that non-citizens be counted as 60% as a compromise to today's Republican Party!
It's never been about the marketplace of ideas for the nativists, it's always been about asserting their control over the rest of us. If you support them, you might get some scraps as a reward to keep you voting for them ("freedom of religion", keeping your privilege, etc.).
1
Asking who is a citizen when the government counts population seems like an extremely reasonable going to do. I see no reason why this question should not be part of the census. To be honest, congressional apportionment would be most sensible if it were denominated in citizens, not residents. The former are members of our governing apparatus, while the later are guests.
39
@QED If the Constitution were written as you wish, there would be no issue.
Unfortunately for your position, it is expressly written the opposite way.
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@Paul '52
Don't think he mentioned the Constitution, but the government may count as it wishes: Title 13, Chapter 5, and so forth. The details of the counting issue, it appears, is with Congress. So for now--let's find out how many citizens there are--a good idea, but not for the cultural Marxists and their Grand Collective. The real issue.
3
@Alice's Restaurant We have complete records on our citizens; birth records and naturalization records exist that show this.
And since citizenship questions would deliberately cut participation, what are the real motives of the racists and nativists?
7
Citizens are the people born here (there are complete local, state, and federal government records of American births available to the federal government), and the people naturalized here (the federal government already has records of these people).
The question is therefore totally unnecessary.
Moreover, pretending that the governmental records are incomplete or erroneous opens the door to attempted or actual fraud by people who are thusly invited to lie on their forms! What an absurd result: a person showing up to register to vote on the premise that “I said I was a citizen therefore I am.”
29
The federal government also has every birth and death record of virtually everyone who dies or is born in the US, regardless of citizenship status. These records contain a vast amount of information and the government already publishes statistics from these data. As the article states, the ACS already collects citizenship status, so the government already has these statistics. Adding the citizenship question to the decennial census is unnecessary and would have the effect of suppressing the count.
12
The US should ask for citizenship status on census forms. It will provide additional information that can be used to plan better demographic policies.
Whether the question is included or not, the US needs to cut illegal immigration to zero. That is the fact that some liberals don't want to admit.
The problem is population growth. The US population grew by 86 million or 36% since 1986 when the last Immigration Reform Bill was passed. Some of that increase is due to immigration but much of it is also due to higher fertility of immigrants.
That shifts resources from university education to K12, which means that a smaller percentage can afford the university. This means that we get fewer physicians per capita and more unskilled workers. By the law of supply and demand, that drives down wages for the unskilled or semi-skilled.
Thus population growth not only destroys our environment but leads to lower living standards for the poor and middle class.
In particular, the US, unlike Canada and Britain, cannot afford a genuine universal health care plan.
The result is more people dying of preventable causes. This particularly afflicts older poor Americans.
The solution is not easy. We need a one-child policy in the US to cut down fertility. We also need to cut down immigration and stop illegal immigration completely.
Of course it should be done humanely. And a question that determines the current status of American residents can help achieve that.
20
@Jake Wagner
Not sure where you obtained your data from about population and economic growth, etc. but it seems you didn’t understand the main point of the article regarding including a question about citizenship. Based on the motivation of the administration to add a query about citizenship to the census it would meet the legal mandate set by the constitution.
Most of the rest of your comments are such that I hope you never run for office in this country because they don’t represent democratic foundation.
20
@Jake Wagner Population X Efficiency = GDP. Europe, Japan, now China have declining populations. As a people gets wealthier, they no longer need to rely on an extended family thanks to pension plans, savings, etc. Thus fewer children, and an aging, less productive population. In fact this is happening all over the first world – except in the one developed country that is not defined by “blood and soil,” that can successfully integrate others and remain a whole, the country made great by its openness and dynamism: The United States of America.
Manage immigration; don’t destroy it.
2
@Jake Wagner You are right except we don't need the One Child Policy. Maybe we need policies which encourage wealthier and better educated people to have more children and poorer less educated to have fewer. That would be a reversal of our current system.
3
seems to me one can obey the law (fill out the census form) and NOT answer the question of citizenship status.
So, the government will know I exist, I live in XXTown, XX State, but will not know from me whether I'm a citizen by birth, or not.
The intrusive nature of the question bothers me. I have no reason to fear deportation or anything of the kind, but the intent is so upsetting to me, I will leave that particular box "blank".
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So filling out a census form is required by law, but putting a ballet in the ballot box is not? Maybe that is at the heart of problem. Make voting mandatory and get a true count of peoples desires about who should represent them in their government.
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@Golddigger Sure, make voting mandatory, but also make it easy with voting by mail and automatic registration.
1
using a similar rational to the one espoused by the republicans and by some commenters here, how about we add a census question asking how many guns each household has?
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What would you do with that data?
1
@guillermo
That's an easy answer.
In high-crime areas, assume at least one.
Thanks, Democrats.
2
@guillermo If the USCB were to end the present system and instead use SES data, perhaps that question could become a part of a new Census. Not soon obviously.
It has already been hard enough to establish trust for census takers, and the Trump administration is now going to prove peoples' worst suspicions.
Demography is supposed to be apolitical. Now, our most reliable, established means of accounting for the population has been hijacked for a far right agenda.
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@NM
The founding fathers were never members of the Conservative Federalist Society. So they obvious never understood the Constitution, that this SCOTUS interprets corporate first amendment rights. But, the US constitution never says a word about corporations which are created by state action. By contrast, the Federal government grants citizen status. The fallacy of a Conservative Supreme Court.
The Voting Rights Act has been rendered moot thanks to John "Racism No Longer Exists" Roberts.
And, once Kavanaugh is appointed, voting, like heath care, will be legally converted from a right into a privilege - A goal the GOP has been pursuing for years.
If Trump had his way, you'd have to pay a poll tax and pass an ideology test in order to vote.
Ironically, the two worst administrations of the last century were the ones where the wisdom of the majority was subjugated to the moral penury of the minority thanks to the Electoral College and a corrupt Supreme Court.
One person, one vote, would have spared this country from the "Reign of Error" of both Bush and Trump.
Soon, we may just have a system where whomever has the most money wins. We're practically there now.
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@Chicago Guy As Trump himself told us: He destroys GOP politicians that do not support him. (His own party!) With that measure of vindictiveness and limited inclusiveness.... all of us can imagine a scenario where we are on the wrong side of the railway tracks.
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@Chicago Guy - Did Roberts say post-racism or post-racial? I ask because I have noted that people who write here in the Times use race and racism as synonyms so I never really know what they are trying to say.
I do not know who invented post-racial but the phrase is meaningless since there are no genetically distinct groups that match the 18th century terminology used by the USCB. If instead post-racial is seen as meaning post-racism then it too is meaningless
Racism - discrimination based on religion. country of birth, skin color and others - is forever so there will never be post-racism. So back to Roberts, can you document that he said and/or wrote "post-racism".
Larry L.
Citizen US SE
A part of this drive to question citizenship is to deny some people the right to vote, based on so-called voter fraud. Our very capable Secretary of State for Maine, Matt Dunlap, just sent a strongly worded letter to the Trump administration denying the existence of any voter fraud, and stating that their claims were false. The Secretary of State examined thousands of documents for this work.
https://www.pressherald.com/2018/08/03/dunlap-accuses-white-house-of-fal...
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@Bevan Davies
I agree the intent is to intimidate and reduce the minority voting population. But why are legal minority voters intimidated? Are there cross checks at the voting booth for outstanding parking tickets or any offense any citizen might be guilty of?
My only experience with a voluntary non-voter was a young black man who essentially said this country didn't stand up for him so why bother standing up to vote for it?
If the question was "How many guns are in the house?". I would be more interested in knowing, and Second Amendment advocates would, rightly wonder, what does this info have to do with a census? Just count the people please, the more questions you ask, the more you'll be lied to. which leads to sloppy math.
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@Rick Gage If there's a gun question on the census, can it also ask if the guns in the household are legal or not? Would the second amendment advocates have any problem with asking that? That's what some think the census should be asking about people's status.
20
One of the often-given justifications for gun rights is to protect against an overbearing government, and one of the reasons for disliking Democrats is that they will take guns away. So I would expect there to be significant backlash to asking about guns.
2
This is hardly the first time the census has "strayed" from its original mandate. Who remember congress critters grilling bureau officials about who ordered this or that question to be added, only to be told "Why, you did, sir. Congress mandated it"?
I find it odd that nobody really knows how many non-citizens reside here, but attempting to count them is forbidden. It's like how non-citizens voting is widely considered mythical, but nobody actually bothers to do any real checks to see if it happens.
13
@Daedalus We already know who the citizens are, such records exist. Asking for self-reporting invites fraud.
13
@Paul52 and @Daedalus
And if the government were doing its job right and properly maintaining records of holders of greencards and visas, and checked regularly to see whether the visa holders had left the country by the time their visas expired, we’d know, through simple math, a close approximation of how many people are here without citizenship — without any need to ask about citizenship directly. (Total population minus citizens = number of non-citizens (NONC); NONC minus holders of greencards and non-expired visas = number of people here improperly/undocumented. I’m pretty sure my neighbor’s 4th header could do the math. And this is he 21st century of disruptive innovation (aka high tech utopia-wannabe), aggregating and disaggregating that data and crunching the numbers ought take the government maybe a day’s worth of computer time, at most. That is, of course, if the government were interested in the results of those simple steps, rather than in fact just wanting to know the exact street addresses of anyone undocumented so they may promptly be visited by law enforcement (assuming fromlks answer honestly); and/or to provide a spiteful Trump et al an excuse to deny mostly-democratic coastal states and border cities the resources they need to maintain infrastructure and the like
6
Another purpose of the census is to know how many people live somewhere. This is essential for emergency evacuations, water supply, roads and other infrastructure issues.
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@Monica C Yeah, we can see how that has worked out under republican administrations.
1
@Monica C So, if you are a non-citizen you would not be evacuated in an emergency? Give me a break!
1
I have no issue with our government asking me or my family about our citizenship status. In fact I think the question should have never been removed from the prior censuses. I believe that representation should be based on the number of citizens in each state and not the total number of the population. This of course would result in states, like California, losing Congressional Representatives as a result of the large numbers of undocumented or illegal persons residing in the state. Should the numbers of students on visas be counted? Should the number of H1B visa holders be counted? None of these people are allowed to participate in elections. The other fear that people on the Left who oppose this effort, is that it will provide a clearer picture of how many people are in this country illegally and provide a better view of their impact on our country, both good and bad.
17
@Mike I haven't heard that the proposed census question seeks to count non-citizens who are here legally (with visas, green cards, etc.) separately from those who are not. Your final sentence seems to conflate these two, suggesting that a question on citizenship will tell us how many are here illegally. It will not.
23
@Mike It’s the Constitution that opposes your position, not a political faction.
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@Mike a further thought on this... I haven't seen the exact wording of the proposed citizenship question. If this is simply a yes or no question regarding citizenship, it doesn't tell us how many non-citizens are here legally vs. illegally.
If we try to word the question to ask if a person is here legally (with a visa, green card, etc.) vs illegally, that may be a violation of the 5th amendment protection against self-incrimination.
Has anyone thought whether asking respondents to incriminate themselves is even legal?
15
"It’s important to remember that the constitutional requirement to count each and every person, not just citizens or legal residents, is based on the very first thing the federal government was told to do when this country was established. It’s literally Job 1." If this is accurate, why not just do it? I suppose it is because one group has identified an advantage if they do something else. Why not rely on the American Community Survey that gives citizen and non-citizen information? I suppose it is because one group really isn't interested in the information unless it can be obtained in a way that skews the census results to their advantage.
33
“…these efforts are seeking to use various tactics to achieve the same end, which is to weaponize the census to redefine American democracy for a narrow set of people”? Come on. How about 90%-plus of the people currently IN this country? How “narrow” is that?
Where did this blindly Kumbaya notion come from that suggests that all people in this country are equivalent with regard to their rights to be represented, irrespective of citizenship or legal residency status? We don’t grant representation rights to Guatemalan citizens in Guatemala. Simply because people breeched our southern border and managed to remain hidden for years, we’re now obligated to “represent” their values, their convictions, their INTERESTS? We’re somehow obligated to grant greater heft in congressional representation and impact in the Electoral College because some states have chosen to ignore our laws or plead inability to combat realities, and by one means or another serve as havens for illegals?
And some people wonder why Trump’s move to deport as many illegal aliens as ICE can find reinforces his support among those who voted for him. Stick a toe back into reality: it was more than any other THIS issue that got Trump elected!
I’m unwilling to accept the premise advanced by the editoriat and by Ms. Gupta on which they base this argument, that citizenship or legal residency status make no constitutional never-mind to their counting for purposes of representation. Let’s have a frank debate about …
23
… this issue and resolve it FIRST (although we pretty much did that in our last election, and not just by electing Trump). I’m confident that the American people will reject the notion that “representation” is owed to illegal aliens.
There’s never been a mystery as to why the Trump administration is including that question on census forms. The mistake is the excessive left’s in thinking that the people don’t support the measure.
9
@Richard Luettgen my Wife is a legal alien and should be represented in the census and by my representative. The question does not differentiate among classes of non citizens. Many at my work are foreigners on work visas. what about them. Drop the hysteria about illegal immigrants and worry about the abhorrent behavior of the citizens running our government now and Trumps supporters. The lies and constant harping on fake news, the press as enemy of the people. This is a real problem.
1
@DRTmunich
So, being legal, your wife SHOULD be represented.
But if you're on a work visa, and until your status changes here to some legal form that suggests that you're not a foreign national intending to return there but intend to become an American, and we approve that intent, then as far as I'm concerned you're not an American and are not entitled to representation as if you were.
1
Please be aware that the question is not a simple Yes/No "Is this person a U.S. citizen?" Instead, it's multiple choice: Was the person born in the U.S., born abroad to U.S. parents, born in a U.S. territory such as Puerto Rico, or naturalized (and if so, when), or a non-citizen.
This question is unreasonably complex and places and undue burden on respondents. For that reason alone it should be struck down.
94
@EveT I think the vast majority of people know where and to whom they were born, and whether they are naturalized or non citizens, and therefore have little or no difficulty answering the question(s).
17
@Mon Ray
I guess you missed the point Eve is making.
Eve - too complex? leave the question unanswered. Problem solved. But do fill out the census form as much as you can.
The consequences of a poorly designed census go far beyond redistricting. Every survey sampling frame is based on the census. That means studies that depend on accurately representing the population are going to be skewed for a decade. Government statistics like unemployment and and crime rates depend on an accurate census. Businesses rely on census data for marketing. Governments rely on it for planning and allocation of state and local resources. The ripple effects of asking a question deliberately designed to reduce participation will cost us dearly.
64
The key issue with the citizenship question and voter registration is the same. The individual involved must take the responsibility to ensure that they achieve citizen status and then to actually follow the applicable rules to register to vote.
It is the Left that actually discourages people from taking initiatives. When the onion skin is pulled away, people who choose to pursue an independent existence are an anathema to the modern Democratic Party.
Not wanting to become increasingly dependent on what the taxes extracted from others can be used for is not what the modern Democratic Party appears to look for in its voters.
6
The government MUST know who are the citizens among the residents of the country. There can be no other answer to this question. Perhaps there is some obscure point of civil rights that is being raised by the leftist radical Democrats, but I also want to know who are US citizens among my neighbors. A day may yet come when the citizens of good will and sound judgement would have to defend the Democracy and Liberty.
31
@Tuvw Xyz
"I also want to know who are US citizens among my neighbors."
Frankly, it's none of your business.
"A day may yet come when the citizens of good will and sound judgement would have to defend the Democracy and Liberty....."
.....from people like yourself.
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@Tuvw Xyz
Actually, the requirement is for the government to know how many people live in the country. Not ho0w many citizens there are.
The Constitution is quite clear - click on the link provided in the article.
In most instances, citizen of the United States is mentioned (Congress, Senate) but counting people living in the states? no. only "free people" (I guess the founding fathers were not interested in counting slaves)
28
"Actually, the requirement is for the government to know how many people live in the country. Not ho0w many citizens there are."
Yes. In fact it is impossible for the US to know how many citizens it has since, according to the State Department, there are over 8 million US citizens residing abroad. Many (not all) will pass on their US citizenship to their children and we are encouraged (but not required) to file a report of the birth with the local US consulate. One attempt to include us in the census was not successful. So until there is a serious effort to count US citizens abroad, the exact number of US citizens will remain unknown. :-)
Results that have Integrity thats why. American citizens have a right to know who is being counted. Those who are here legally and who are non citizens My business has to answer a survey every year in regard to number of employees, the amount of income. type of business, and other pertinent information.
The census has become one more political game played for power and money. Washington the Swamp
.
15
The government does not have the resources to enforce compliance or prosecution. I would refuse to answer the question - none of your business. And when the census questionaire asks about race, my response is human.
35
@John Paul But an immigrant might be intimidated into not answering or replying. It is more complex than standing up and not answering the question.
49
@Paul
Enough of us citizens need to refuse to answer to hide the non-citizens who also refuse to answer.
"We’ve had a lot of people ask if they should boycott the census. First of all, filling out the census is required by law. But more to the point, it would play into Steve Bannon’s greatest dream, which would be to have a systematic undercount of vulnerable communities, particularly communities of color, that would result in reduced political representation and reduced availability of basic services."
This predates gerrymandering, the logical result from learning where the whites hang out, in order to rig voting districts and cement political power. Historically, both parties have gerrymandered but lately, Republicans have turned it into an art form.
Folks like Bannon have a philosophical reason for weaponizing the Census: in his "clash of civilizations" worldview, he wants white Christians to prevail over people of color.
Adding the citizenship question will make people hide, under-count populations in districts, and reduce allocations of federal dollars in places with a high number of "undesirables"--African Americans, Hispanics, Muslim-Americans, you name it.
Why don't they just mandate telling the government your skin color?
The census is mandated by law only to ensure districts are proportional. The more the GOP can suppress headcounts, the more likely it is that the people being represented are the "right kind" of people.
There's no other word for this cynical racist power play: disgusting.
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@ChristineMcM
agree!
leave that question unanswered!
1
@ChristineMcM The only people who might feel threatened by adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census would be illegal aliens and, of course, politicians seeking illegal votes.
Most Americans welcome LEGAL immigrants, but do not want ILLEGAL aliens; i.e., foreigners in the US illegally. We cannot afford (or choose not) to support our own citizens: the poor, the ill, elderly, disabled, veterans, et al. It is therefore utterly impossible for US taxpayers to support the hundreds of millions of foreigners who would like to come here.
It is necessary to limit legal immigration, detain and deporting illegal aliens, and require those who wish to enter the US to wait for processing. What is cruel, unethical and probably illegal is encouraging parents to bring their children on the dangerous trek to US borders and teaching the parents how to game the system to enter the US by falsely claiming asylum, persecution, abuse, etc. Many consider those who bring their children on arduous and dangerous journeys to enter the US illegally are guilty of child abuse.
Failing to ask about citizenship on the 2020 census makes no sense. Abolishing ICE makes sense only to advocates of open borders, which no nation will ever approve. We will lose the mid-terms/2020 elections if open borders are part of the Democratic platform.
3
@ChristineMcM - Christine, in my comment I simply repeat what I have been writing since 2013 when simultaneously I read two books, both of which make the case for ending the USCB system. Today I only mention Kenneth Prewitt's.
Your single sentence, "Why don't they just mandate telling the government your skin color?" leaves me wondering what the implications of that are.
Perhaps you could explain.
At present Muslims from what the Census Bureau considered as using as the name for a new "race" - MENA Middle East, North Africa are white by law (USCB practice). Example at hand in an article I am reading today - Kurds are genetically related to some subset of Jews.
Prewitt's book makes a case in Ch. 11 for ending the USCB race-ethnicity system, replacing it eventually by a system based on SES data, perhaps also with country of birth. That is the Swedish system.
Citizenship would be one element in a new system, that is either with or without citizenship designation. I do not yet know enough about the citizenship issue to write directly about it.
Larry L.
I participated in the 2010 census. I was part of a group of census-takers that attempted to count homeless people. It would have been impossible to do this fairly if I'd had to ask who was a citizen and who wasn't -- nor was there any way to double-check who might have been telling the truth and who might not have been, if that citizenship question had been part of the questionnaire. People in flophouses don't travel with their birth certificates or other such documentation. This is simply a farcical way of trying to intimidate the kind of people who don't like Trump and the Republicans out of their fair share of the American dream.
241
@Piri HalaszYou do not need a birth certificate to answer the census.
3
We are stuck in this trap where government impinging is tolerated in cases where it shouldn't be. After Edward Snowden told us the extent of the government's snooping on all Americans citizens, we did nothing to pressure Congress to restore our privacy
Impingement by government, unless stopped through vigorous opposition, usually continues to grow. As we move away from democracy and well into oligarchy and its trademark authoritarianism, it is unsurprising to see attempts like this one to further encroach on all of our other rights as citizens.
We didn't have a vigorous enough debate during the Obama years and when it came time for reform, we got weak tea. After Trump, we will need to remake ourselves as a nation and one of the first promises we must make to ourselves is that we will be much better stewards of our children's education so they can be better citizens than we were, in knowing our civics and jealously guarding our civil rights.
---
Ronald Dworkin on Mistakes, Liberty, the Tea Party & Secondary Education
https://www.rimaregas.com/2015/07/08/ronald-dworkin-on-mistakes-the-tea-...
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@Rima Regas
"After Edward Snowden .."
.. betrayed USA field staff, and is now living in Russia. Most Americans call him "traitor."
Please, Bernie Sanders, run on Snowden comments. Keep the Democrats a minor national political party. Thank you.
3
@Rima Regas and given how anti big government the GOP says it is, this sudden interest in a person's citizenship on the census is very "Big Brother". They can get this information from tax returns. I fail to see why scaring people off from the census is a good idea unless the GOP and its owners are planning to use it as an excuse to underfund every program that benefits working Americans. Then the purpose is crystal clear.
5
@Rima Regas Good point about government snooping...why do they even need a census. They should already know, unless their intention is to catch people in lies in order to deport. If I was an immigrant I would be very afraid. This government is the most heavy handed I've ever lived through. Disgusting and very un-american.
1
But you never answer the question: what can regular people do? If we refuse to answer that question will our census forms still count? Will we be prosecuted? What will the government do if enough (thousands or millions of) people refuse to answer that one question?
269
@S.B. Incomplete census response forms are still counted. In practical terms, there's no penalty for leaving this question blank.
40
@S.B. I'm interested in this question, too.
I'm an American citizen. If my not answering the citizenship question would expose me to prosecution, I'm willing.
If not answering would allow the administration to omit me from the count, I'll answer the question.
It seems I'd contribute to disenfranchisement of my state in the House by not answering that thoroughly detestable question. I'll choose the lesser of two evils.
3
@S.B.
I am a citizen, and if that question is on the census I will not answer it. It's unethical.
I will, however, answer the other questions and turn it in.
According to this NPR article, you will still be counted.
https://www.npr.org/2018/04/19/603629576/skipping-the-2020-census-citize...
You'll probably just be hounded to answer.
4
"For perspective, the editorial board spoke with Vanita Gupta, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of groups that is opposing the citizenship question."
It would think that to get true perspective on an issue, you would interview people on both sides of the controversy. Personally I agree that this new question is driven by Trump's obsession with illegal immigration.
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@Charlesbalpha
That isn't the only obsession that the Trump administration and the oligarch in charge of the census are trying to insert. They also want to know the respondent's sexual orientation, according to leaked documents.
It won't end there. Not with a bought Congress and an executive under the control of the buyers.
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@Charlesbalpha
It would also be helpful not to refer to Bannon as Trump’s chief strategist when that is clearly no longer the case and when Bannon had and has nothing to do with the census. The truth is bad enough - why do opponents of this administration continually find the need to gild the lily?
6
@Me
Your observation is a fair one but, in this case, the lily was already gilded. Documents released at end of July in lawsuit to remove the citizenship question revealed that Mr. Bannon was, in fact, the likely genesis for the question - telling the Commerce Secretary shortly after the inauguration that they wanted citizenship data from the census. Ross then pushed forward with no regard for Census Bureau process for testing and developing questions to be on the census form each decade. So, regrettably but perhaps not surprisingly, Bannon had everything to do with this.