For many Americans whose ancestors immigrated earlier, getting here legally was relatively easy (obviously there were major class exceptions). If your ancestors were from Europe, particularly Northern Europe, you came here and got a job and a few years later (varied depending on when) you swore an oath and became a citizen. Done. No test.
By those standards, most of today’s immigrants pass with flying colors. Work? Check. Not an anarchist? Check. Speak English? No, but I’m trying to learn. Ok, check.
We also forget that the territory that is now the US was not an exclusive English colony. Huge swaths were Spanish, smaller swaths were French or Russian, and there were Dutch, Swedish, German etc thrown in. Some of those communities hung on for years (President Martin Van Buren spoke Dutch as his first language!).
All the new migrants struggled in the first generation, got better in the second, and thrived as Americans in the third.
We should never forget our history.
11
Trump is like the forest that we can not see because of the trees.
The obviousness of his admiration for autocratic authoritarian despots, his unrelenting efforts to neutralize Congress and the Judiciary, and his general disregard for norms, mores, laws and Constitutional requirements should tell us all of his wishes. It is not hyperbole to suggest that the evidence is clear that Trump would like to be dictator of America.
I am not the first to suggest it. Notwithstanding, most of America is either applauding Trump's actions (40%), complaining about his actions but doing little about them (50%), or undecided (5%) or apathetic (5%) about them. Every day that he is able to overreach is another day he comes closer to achieving his wishes.
When are the American people going to rise up in protest and rebellion against this man? If we wait until he has done it, that will be woefully too late.
16
The right-wing pundit, Hugh Hewitt, wrote late Tuesday that he was surprised that Trump had given up so easily on the census fight. Boom! Wednesday, the president was back in the fight, throwing off both the Departments of Commerce and Justice.
We've seen this movie before. Trump reversed his opinion of comprehensive immigration reform as soon as Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and the rest of that gang declared he was a coward. In late June, the airstrikes against Iran were called off at the last moment because the president learned that Tucker Carlson opposed them.
Perhaps it is time for the president to fire everyone in his Cabinet and appoint the evening Fox hosts, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Hugh Hewitt, et al as his A-team. (Of course Ivanka and Jared remain on board.) That would ensure consistently whacko actions as opposed to erratic whacko ones.
13
The solution is simple. Don't answer the question. You will still be counted if you answer the others.
12
There is something fundamentally wrong when one political party benefits from illegal immigration and gains congressional representation by facilitating such activity though 'sanctuary' policies. It preverts the very intent of the rule of law. Count the illegals,yes,so we know the extent of the problem, but don't allow cheaters to benefit while diminishing the value of the rule of law and those who respect it.
5
His latest legal shenanigans?! What a delicate way to understate what is going on here.This is Trump's Independence Day! You think Trump tried to rig the census? Well, he isn't done yet. With Republican help he may actually do it! Add to that John Robert's rigging of the electoral college last month by blessing gerrymandering to block Democrat votes. Don't forget the shout out Trump made last week to Putin et al to help him again in the 2020 election. Today Trump is actually celebrating his own independence from the law and getting away with it.
15
Undeterred by public criticism and the initial judicial setbacks if the Trump administration is determined to add the citizenship question to the Census 2020 it is only to so alter the country's democratic and demographic map as to have certain ethno-racial minority groups perpetually disenfranchised, deprived of federal sassistance, and force others out of the citizenship rolls. This presents the ugliest partisan face of the Trump administration which will destroy the pluralist multiparty representative character of the US democracy for ever.
5
Doesn’t the government and or states have computers that keep track to citizenships?
1
'Two scholars say in a new research paper that despite earlier denials, the Census Bureau was deeply involved in the roundup and internment of Japanese-Americans at the onset of American entry into World War II.' (https://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/17/us/report-says-census-bureau-helped-relocate-japanese.html)
I missed the above story at the time, but the fact that the 1940 census was used to help round up people of Japanese ancestry was mentioned on NPR this morning. They provide a disturbing reminder that the census can be used maliciously, not just in its undertaking but also after the fact.
Starting in March 1942, standard confidentiality protections were suspended under the Second War Powers Act. These protections were reinstated and then strengthened after the war. The Census Bureau claims there are now strict privacy protections that prohibit sharing of any personal census data with other agencies. But during a Trump administration all bets may be off.
The Washington Post has a nice update to the issues around census misuse during the war and later protections against misuse.
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/04/03/secret-use-of-census-info-helped-send-japanese-americans-to-internment-camps-in-wwii/?utm_term=.363d9213785b)
7
Accurate, secure..and honest.
There.
Fixed it for you.
Apportionment should only be done using the count of citizens. We can count everyone..including the illegal aliens, but apportionment that hugely impacts political power should be reserved for those who can prove U.S. citizenship.
If anyone out there seriously thinks our Founding Fathers intended for a state like CA to radically alter their laws, rules and governance to literally steal dozens of House seats and Electoral votes..and the billions in federal $ that go with it..please plead your case.
Treating people from Minnesota today using this logic means we're 7/8 of a person (those who are residents and citizens).
How is this any different than counting black people in the South during the nations founding as 3/5 of a person?
It's all about power and money, and those of us who are being robbed have quite literally had enough of it.
5
Let Trump put his citizenship question on the census. Then to protect those who are fearful to be counted, all of us in the majority, who are anti-Trumpers, need to check-off "non-citizen" in the box. That way non-citizens can honesty participate in this Republican farce; without fear of sticking out. It will be like "I am Spartacus." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8h_v_our_Q
2
When you "rig the census," you rig the allocation of resources including House seats, and reinforce gerrymandering. If that's not bad enough, when a President defies the Supreme Court, you have a public act of "treason" by failing to obey the most fundamental principle of our Constitution--"the rule of law." This is an impeachable offense of the highest and worst magnitude. It's time for the House Democrats to pay attention to the threat to our Constitution which we celebrate today (except in Washington where it's been rebranded as a "Salute to Trump") and defend it by beginning an impeachment inquiry. Waiting for the November, 2020 election may be like "waiting for Godot." At the relentless pace the Trump autocracy is advancing, it may never arrive. #Where'sNancy?
3
A correct count of population includes both citizens and those persons illegally in the US. I don’t see why the two numbers can’t just be added together for a total. What’s next, will Democrats want questions about ethnicity and race dropped? That way Democrats can gerrymander voting districts to have any number of people different races that they want without regard to allowing minorities to be represented.
3
Our Royal Sun God does not necessarily need to under count in Democratic districts to achieve his objective, over counting in GOP areas would work just as well.
Given recent history and our lack of computer security, watch for some very surprising and unanticipated population increases in the most unlikely of locations..... thanks to Uncle Vlad and the Boys.
Who would have guessed the beaches in Yuma, AZ were becoming so popular?
3
Understanding how many people are living in your Country illegally is important. How else can we set aside the right amount of resources to provide free healthcare, free public assistance, and free housing.
3
The census process as described...another example of Trump's incompetence!
1
Where is Nancy Pelosi? She should come right out in no uncertain terms that if the census form shows up with a citizenship question on it that is instant grounds for impeachment.
2
This administration led by a corrupt, inept and weak president will do anything to save face. The only remedy We, the People have in this matter is to not answer the citizenship question at all and let this incapable administration deal with the results. They ask for trouble, they will get it. Persist, Resist and Vote them Out!
2
Something all Americans should think about, regardless of your political leanings, on Independence Day: an American President is angling to defy a decision rendered by SCOTUS, the highest judicial body in the land that is a supposed co-equal branch of government along with the legislative branch.
243 years after the 13 colonies demanded independence from a form of government that had in essence only one branch of government, something seen contemporaneously in authoritarian and totalitarian governments, how will YOU react to this power grab? Your decision on November 3, 2020, will determine whether you continue to celebrate your freedoms or become nothing more than a vassal to a wanna be dictator.
Happy Independence Day, America. From a legal resident from another democratic and free country, but who is here to pursue his own and his family's dreams and who is willing to fight via the pen to preserve and support everyone's dreams for a better life.
5
As Democrats and progressives fear, a citizenship question on the Census would in fact discourage illegal immigrants from participating. As a result, the sanctuary cities and states would receive less in federal funding an non-citizens would not be counted. That is what this nonsense is all about, plain and simple.
If "sanctuary" cities and states want to harbor illegal aliens and frustrate any attempt to deal with this crisis, they should pay for it.
Trump in 2020!!
6
Our leaders are cruel and inhumane humans. Are we as a people cruel and inhumane since we elected them?
One can rationalize that the republicans have gerrymandered the system in their favor, they have enlisted the Russians to assist in the election of their president, we give generously to those suffering on the boarder so this is really not the fault of the American people. BUT, the fact is we are doing cruel things on the border, we lied our way into a devastating war that claimed over 500,000 Iraqi lives, we having increasing mortality in our own population, we gave the rich a huge tax break while increasing taxes on our middle class, we diss our allies while embracing murderous dictators while the Senate under the leadership of a racist McConnell with foreign ties allows this all to happen. Our SCOTUS approves of the inhumane activity of present administration. We as a country are approving all of these injustices.
The fact is, this is America. A nation in disgrace. A nation of liars, war mongers and murderers.
We can change this. We do have elections. Are we going to allow the continued deaths of children in the custodianship of our government? Think about how you are going to vote in 2020.
3
Just think, if it weren't for 77,000 votes in three states hacked by the russians, we would have been spared this non-stop monstrosity of a kakistocracy. Thanks, putin.
2
"The Trump team took its shot at rigging the census..."
So it's "rigging the census" to try to make sure that those in the US illegally are not given benefits and representation reserved to citizens and legal residents?
There's exactly one reason for trying to include the illegals: to inflate the population numbers in places where the concentration of illegal aliens is high--i.e., Democratic states, "sanctuary cities" and so forth. And the only reason for doing that is to rob the effectiveness of legally-present Americans and to rob American taxpayers by making us provide services to those who have no no right to them.
1
Send EVERYONE a paper census.
1
Didn’t you hear? Trump’s “opening up” the Census printing- instead of the “Libel Laws”. All bets are off. Thumbing nose at his Supreme Court. As ever when told he can’t do something his response is-“Says Who?” And nobody holds him to account. EVER.
2
The main concern with the Census question and an administration like this is hate for liberals and ethnic minorities. How will it be used in the future? All ethnic data should be removed from the census. It puts our lives at risk as we have experienced in the past.
With an administration like this there is no way they can claim they won't use it for dubious purposes. They have constantly proven they are untrustworthy and intent on harm.
The best I think we can do is potentially lie about any race related information and may need to as a society. Obviously the best choice would to put down white as it's the safest color that attracts the least amount of attention. But what is the consequence?
Skipping The 2020 Census Citizenship Question?
April 19, 201811:26 AM ET
https://www.npr.org/2018/04/19/603629576/skipping-the-2020-census-citizenship-question-youll-still-be-counted
Federal law prohibits the Census Bureau from releasing information identifying an individual to other federal agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But the bureau can share data at the neighborhood level about specific population groups, as it did during World War II when the government targeted U.S. citizens of Japanese descent and forced them from their homes and into incarceration camps.
"Many communities want assurances and deserve assurances that something like that, which happened to American citizens, would not ever happen again," Meng told Jarmin during the hearing.
2
Why should we reward incompetence?
In 2020, we have to change the composition of the White House.
2
Law? What law? Court? What court?
From the beginning this administration has thumbed its nose at the courts and held all law in contempt. Thieves and racketeers in office. Trump has used office to put law enforcement and the judiciary on his ...our...payroll.
1
Trump and his white nationalist henchman - Miller, Barr and Ross, are out to subvert the US Census. For the four of them, it is a once in a decade opportunity to be really, truly malevolent.
1
Pity Justice Department lawyers (not) for having to trot to Federal Court- again on orders of a tin-pot-wannabe- dictator to come up with plan-B-lie; for why the citizenship question needs to be on the Census. The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that Lie #1 is far too transparent...that even Clarence Thomas (without glasses) can see it.
This regurgitated effort should never have been considered: Woe that a too-diligent Federal Judge read Trump's twitter fed, now giving credence to last-ditch stupidity. And now-the NYT editorial bored writes:
"Perhaps now officials could devote their energies to ensuring that this vital process isn’t undermined by incompetence or malicious interference."
Which officials in the Trump administration does the NYT believe will go against their marching orders to disrupt this very American process of counting ALL people?
2
No fake news or fake reports here, Donald. And now, no fake demography!
So the Democrats are strongly
-against counting the potential voters
-against IDs at voting
-against checking the voting rolls, but
-for as many illegals in as possible, and
-for driver licenses given to these
One doesn't have to be Sherlock Holmes to see a pattern here...
2
I wonder what the annual holiday date will be when future Americans celebrate the nation's next revolution and declaration of independence from the kings and tories of today's republican party and their friends the oligarchs and religious tyrants?
2
“undermined by incompetence or malicious interference.”
The very definition of the Trump presidency from Day One. Indeed, from the gilded escalator descent to earth.
It is hard even to know WHICH more accurately describes Donald J. Trump and the vast majority of his administration: incompetence, or malicious interference.
We need to invent a new word. To be “Trumped” means to be the target of incompetent and malicious interference.
As when you order a chocolate ice cream cone, and get a half melted, gooey, pile of slithering vanilla, running down the side of your cone all over your brand new shirt.
You say: dang, I have been Trumped.
1
Just think, 77,000 votes in three states hacked by the russians gave us this nonstop kakistocracy nightmare. Thanks, putin.
1
Continuous, unending corruption by Trump, his administration and supporters continues unabated in every, single matter.
This man with his 10,000 lies for the first two years of his administration as reported in the Washington Post also continues unabated.
Trump's 180 on the Census is just adding to his pile of disgrace, and to our Presidency.
He has neither decency, nor shame!
2
They do not want an accurate count. They want to remove political power and resources from people they don't like. They want to vest outsize power and money in white Republicans.
2
If the president can simply override any Supreme Court decision he doesn't like, why did they make such an effort to stick us with Gorsuch and Kegger? This guy really does fancy himself a king.
2
Census charged with counting all "residents". It is a "population" census. Period. Nothing else. Results of and replies to the census to be kept inviolate and private for 72 years. Trumputin clearly not aware of this. He would have to read the Constitution and its related Articles. Barron could easily explain it to him. But, he would still not comprehend. You just can't fix "stupid".
3
Nothing surprises me about the Trump Administration's shenanigans. It is just one of a list of hundreds if separate items of abuse of power.
What puzzles me, (I am beyond being alarmed since I am now fatalistic that the Trump Administration will take down America) is why?
Why has the Republican Party, the Supreme Court, the Attorney General and even Robert Muller himself (Not to mention the flaccid and pathetic effort put up by the Democratic Party) caved into and normalized the onslaught dishonest and criminal behavior by this President?
There is not a scintilla of doubt he is a liar. There is no question he is racist. There is daily proof that he is engaged in criminal activity from, "Russia if you are listening I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,”
To the multiple instances of PROOF laid out in the Muller report proving that Trump obstructed Justice, to the 22 instances of sexual assault that have surfaced against women, to the actual testimony of Trump himself that he is a serial sexual predator.
We in Canada have been asked to arrest and detain a Chinese woman based on vague and esoteric accusations of potential criminal behavior which has resulted in two of our citizens being kidnapped and imprisoned by China, and yet Trump with a Tsunami of hard evidence of criminality is practically immune from criminal prosecution.
This is not America's finest hour.
3
Let's say this census is garbage, whether because of the citizenship question or the administration's lying about the results.
Could the next President direct a new census be taken?
2
“The morning after administration officials said the citizenship question had been dropped, Mr. Trump was on Twitter contradicting them.”
When did the inmates start running the asylum?
Oh right, January 20, 2017.
1
Why does the Editorial Board not think it important to understand how many citizens of the US exist? Doesn’t citizenship matter?
1
And he will because no one will stop him,
1
Elect a clown, expect a circus. If this moves forward, the District Court should demand that Trump appear before them, since it's clear that no one in the DoJ can speak on his behalf without him undermining them within minutes.
I would dearly love to listen to Trump answer questions from a panel of District Court judges on the rationale behind the insertion of the citizenship question in the Census.
Sadly, this charade is occurring because the Chief Justice could not bring himself to properly close the door on the government's case. In an act both disingenuous and cowardly, Roberts invited this silliness upon the court. Shame on him, and shame on Trump.
3
The GOP barrel of dirty tricks is truly bottomless.
God bless America.
1
Guaranteed illegal outcomes: either the question will be on he census or the whole census will be cancelled. After the House impeaches the Senate will acquit, and the dictatorship will have begun. Nor will Trump leave office after 2, 6, 10 or 14 years. Guaranteed. Amerika Uber Alles.
Trump’s tax returns NOW!
1
Why did Republicans drop the citizenship question? Because why bother rig the census with old fashioned racial intimidation when your pal Putin can be trusted to it better, slicker, and way cheaper.
You’ll notice that Republicans are also not remotely worried about 2020...
1
As Trump and his supporters have shown, it doesn't take an actual snafu or serious error to undermine the confidence of the citizens of the State of Paranoia in voting results. Ditto for results of the 2020 census. We can only do our best to make sure both counts are as accurate as reasonably possible. Worrying about those who will say or believe anything that undermines results they don't like is a waste of time.
Does anyone seriously doubt that we now live under a dictatorship? We have a "president" who has just stated publicly that he will most certainly have the citizenship question on the census forms. We have a "president" who has stated that he is above the law, no matter what the Supreme Court rules.
We have a "president" who is ordering a show of tanks throughout the nation's capitol -- something unheard of in my lifetime, and I remember presidents back to Eisenhower. We have a "president" who kowtows to world dictators and who has trashed all of our alliances with Western democracies. We have a "president" who has declared a "national emergency" for an emergency existing only in his mind.
We have a "president" who has ordered infants and children into internment camps on our soil, with no indication of the exact numbers of these kids or where their families are located, and with no plans to ever re-unite them. We have a "president" who has repeatedly told us that he is not planning on leaving office under any circumstances.
We have a "president" who has a large, rabid, heavily armed minority of our citizens in his thrall. They worship him to a level that Adolf Hitler would have envied.
And now this sickening display on July 4th, along with the clear language that Trump will ignore the Supreme Court's ruling on the census issue. I'm a native-born U.S. citizen in my 60's, and this July 4th will be a day of mourning for me and my family.
3
To the Speaker of the House:
Open an impeachment inquiry NOW. Do your job, Nancy!
Sincerely,
Everyone
Oh Dear - the Master of FAKE!-ery calls the census fake so citizens will lose faith in it ... unnhhhggg - I'm losing faith in the system if the system can be so gamed by such a Major R. Soul ...
1
Republicans realize they have to cheat steal and lie to win elections and in their leader Trump they have a prolific liar,. Corrupt enough to cheat and steal witness his draft dodging .tax fraud ,sexual assaults .cheating on his wife and accepting help from a hostile power to win the office he is unfit to hold.
1
Why this last sentence?? The article makes crystal clear that the census is now no longer at risk. The census is torpedoed. Hence, it would now be appropriate for the NYT to suggest that the census be called off. Call Trump's bluff!
Dear Nancy Pelosi,
Impeach.
Now.
Before it’s too late.
2
Question 13 on the Canadian census:
Of what country is this person a citizen?
Indicate more than one citizenship, if applicable.
"Canada, by naturalization" refers to the process by which an immigrant is granted citizenship of Canada, under the Citizenship Act.
1: Canada, by birth
2: Canada, by naturalization
3: Other country — specify
I guess Canada must be a racist country.
2
If Trump defies the court, Congress will have no choice but to impeach and the Republicans in the Senate better get a spine. This is beyond ridiculous.
2
I don't want the Democrats to force me to subsidise the illegals from my tax. If they are so generous, let them do it through private organizations.
Trump University is now conducting the United States Census.
It's never too late to impeach this lawless President.
4
He's grandstanding, as always. He'll be forced to walk it back, and then claim he never attempted to change it. He is a shameless, pathological liar.
2
From reading this, it appears the census won't be accurate even if Donald Trump comes up with the logic that of course they have to have a citizenship question, in order to send out "congratulations" to all those who check the box.
It sounds as if there are enough opportunities for hacks and lost data to make the results meaningless.
I've read posts here from folk who vow not to answer that question. I'm tempted not to answer it myself.
A few months ago, I got forms from the Commerce Department that I'd been randomly selected to complete a household census as way to ascertain the demographics of my city.
The language was threatening: big fines for not complying. It was a tedious process, even online, with a lot of information about work and income for myself and my partner.
It's really a shame that what used to be a routine process has been so corrupted by this president and his minions that no matter what happens with his stupid citizenship fixation, the results will be likely be corrupted as well.
6
I personally believe that the question about citizenship should be IN and the question about race should be OUT.
People should look at the form for the last census in 2010 and ask themselves whether a citizenship question is more intrusive than some of the questions which were already asked in 2010.
https://www.census.gov/dmd/www/pdf/d-61b.pdf
2
They don’t want an accurate census. If they can’t have one that depresses the count of immigrants, getting an inaccurate one (which inevitably means undercounting poor people and people of colour because wealthy white folks have more stable lives and are this easier to count) is the next best thing for Republicans.
1
First off, Mr Trump was elected president of the United States, not the bureaucrats in the Dept of Justice. So, if Trump wants to flip-flop on directing DOJ's action regarding the citizenship question, it is their responsibility under the Constitution to follow orders from our duly elected leader.
Yet, as we have all seen from the Obama-Clinton-Trump election scandal, we know how well the deep state, including the DOJ and the FBI, is at following, not following or just going rogue when it comes to taking direction and following the 'rule of law'.
Second, we get this doozy of a statement from the Editorial Board:
"...the politicization of the census and the administration’s hard-line immigration policies have unnerved residents of immigrant-heavy communities, some of whom are wary of opening their door to any government worker."
When nut jobs at Ruby Ridge and Waco were 'unnerved' by Federal intervention on their private property, the MSM was in a tither. Yet when immigrants, many, many of whom are illegal, are 'wary' of government workers, they need to be coddled. Really?! They should be wary - they're breaking the law! In our deep state, the MSM should be calling for all non-responsive census addresses to be visited by the police with orders to force entry, if needed.
To close, let me pose a more fundamental question about the invasiveness of the census in general - who's America is this anymore? Is it the people's? Or is the deep state's?
It speaks volumes about one's objectives when one has to lie, cheat, and steal to achieve them.
4
Come on, people, there is NO solution to Trump except at the ballot box. Impeachment by the House would lead only to the corrupt GOP Senate refusing to convict him and he would be legally innocent. The Supreme Court is almost just as corrupt. The only hope is to vote him out and pray there are enough people of character in office to do their duty and haul him away kicking and screaming. Other than that, accept that we have a dictator now, because that's what we've got. And our fellow Americans who vote R no matter what did it to us.
1
He lacks a sense of grace and thinks that he can always have the last word.
His first words as he took his oath of office were to protect and defend the Constitution.
He has failed miserably.
We the people must use our civic duty and expose the lies, misdeeds, failures, and corruption that are endemic to this sham presidency. And in 17 months, get out and vote with the certainty that any other candidate will perform in the kind of sane, competent, and ethical behavior that we expect from the highest elected office in this country.
2
Republicans have been seeing the writing in the wall for some time. They are a quantitative minority only interested in benefiting a few of their close friends. They have been successful in fooling a large part of the voters by blaming “the other.” Without cyber meddling they would not have gotten Trump elected (in fact, let’s not forget he got 3M less votes than Clinton). They need this question in the census as they need gerrymandering—and voters’ intimidation, minority disenfranchisement, and... you name it! in order to keep the senate and the WH.
2
Imagine a future President defying the Supreme Court and asking a census question about how many guns a person owns, how many AK-47s, and are they registered? You reap what you sow.
1
“Democrats should be devoting their energies...” to winning local and state elections instead of wasting their time and our energy on a 20+ person beauty contest. Check your egos at the door and do your job!
1
Trump has been and will always be a scam artist--that is just who and his family are. It always about shortcuts and how to cheat your way to money and fame. No matter what the issue or problem is, it is never the right goal or the right method---it is always about winning--that is the end, no matter the means.
1
How DARE the American people desire to know just how many Americans live in America! Those rascals!
Why should citizens in any country know or care how many visitors are living among them?
Time to think for once, progressives.
I will not be counted. I will not participate in a racist government department(s) run by our President and who demands in making the census what he wants it to be. My ancestors were and are indigenous to the Americans for thousands of years. I will not be counted in 2020 but as an American I will vote in 2020.
1
I want my country back.
It is unrecognizable.
1
trump's wish to add citizenship is acceptable only if it's retroactive to 08 August 2018 - the day before his chain-migrated in-laws had received their US citizenship
1
I worked in New York City in a classroom full of illegal aliens one family had five children. For sake of argument say that each child was getting $12,000 from the state for their education 5×12 = 60,000 per year. The father was in the picture but welfare reasons he lived in another household so the family can make additional money. In 12 years their education will cost over $700,000.
I am Moderate and hold both liberal and conservative views could someone please tell me how this family in this generation or the next will ever pay more in taxes then they received an education. This is not including the free medical they received for 12 years.
1
There are 538 possible electors for presidential elections. Every 10 years, based on new census reports, the number of electors is redistributed/re-apportioned/ reallocated to states based on population size. Not voting population, not number of citizens but ACTUAL total population. This is why blue states want more illegals (as many as they can get) - more electors when electing presidents.
Democrats don’t care about illegals, they CERTAINLY don’t care about American Citizens... all they care about is power. The ends justify the means. to the demonstrable detriment of American citizens? Yes, of course. Obviously. Exacerbating unemployment, homelessness, etc. They don’t care. They want power, and they’ll lie, cheat, steal and destroy millions of lives in order to get it. If you think Chuck and Nancy couldn’t possibly know this and that they’d never be party to this, that they’d never pull these strings and levers of cynical machination then you’re sorely mistaken.
After the way he counted his inaugural crowd, what’s to worry about?
1
Trump is running the country the way he ran his corrupt businesses. He’s comporting himself as President in the way he comported himself in his personal life. He disobeys or skirts laws, he lies, he drags out lawsuits and delays court appearances. He used to have a whole team of lawyers who managed his many legal problems and now he thinks the Justice Department will carry out his dirty deeds in the ways his personal lawyers did. All this chaos enlivens and excites him.
It would not be a surprise if he stops the printing process and orders that the citizenship question be added. He cannot imagine being that “loser” his father warned against. I’m starting to believe he wants the impeachment process to start, so that he can chalk up another “win.”
We are seeing serious pathology here. That shooting on Fifth Avenue may no longer be so far-fetched.
2
It's unfortunate that to keep arguing the finer points of this issue is really a waste of time. Your editorial would be valid if we were dealing with a normal, law-abiding politician in the White House. By now, we all know that Trump doesn't give a hoot about the rule of law, the Constitution, the separation of powers or judicial decisions. Trump does what he wants to do and that's the end of the matter. What is needed is for the Democrats in the House to find the backbone and start impeachment proceeding against this malevolent would be dictator. Somebody in this nation must find a way to stop Trump or our democracy is doomed.
1
It's not just the "Trump team." It's the dark forces who are seeking to turn the U.S. into a tyranny that are behind this in my view. These are scared rich white people who believe that real democracy will arise and that they may lose some of their unwarranted billions. You should dig deeper.
If you want to do some real investigative research as to the roots of who is behind this effort to bring on full fledged fascism, look no further than the relation between the following people and who are the real forces that Leonard Leo serves and how these people are connected: Leonard Leo - Senior Executive - Federalist Society William Barr - Attorney General Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts - Federalist Society Member Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh - Federalist Society member Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas - Federalist Society member Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch - Federalist Society member. Supreme Court Justice Samual Alito - Federalist Society member. Charles Koch - Friend of Leonard Leo. The Knights of Malta and Leonard Leo. Blackwater and the Knights of Malta - Erik Prince If you think the Church ever gave up its desire to suppress women, suppress democracy, exercise thought control, then perhaps you may choose to study the history of the crusades and how the battle for global control by a few thousand oligarchs continues unabated as does the battle between religious agendas.
2
It's a fair question.
Dear BLS Employees:
I would like to remind you that as a citizen voter and taxpayer, I am your boss.
I order you to take a dispassionate census per Article 1 of our Constitution.
Please ignore any illegal or unconstitutional orders you receive from phonies pretending to be elected officials. Otherwise you risk prosecution under the laws of our land.
Thank you,
Terri O’Brien
2
On the eve of "his" greatest-ever July 4th celebration in Washington, complete with weapons of war, Donald John Trump, elected by a minority of voters with the help of a foreign government, defies the Supreme Court in order to intimidate brown-skinned immigrants.
2
Why don't we just use the census figures from 1820? There was almost no Irish, South European, Asian or Mestizo immigration to speak of and most Blacks were only 60% people.
This will save money and give Trump the results he wants.
1
Asking the citizenship question is both reasonable and appropriate. We need to know who is in the country. If illegal aliens refuse to answer then I would not blame them, they are here illegally after all. Law breakers often try to keep a low profile. It is time for truth in this country and the NYT should come clean on their extreme bias.
1
In yesterday’s mail I received an official-looking form and accompanying cover letter (signed by the turncoat Ronna McDaniel) labeled “2019 Congressional District Census”. Of course it has nothing whatever to do with the decennial Census, and would more accurately be labeled a survey. It wants to know my opinion on the customary red-meat political rally issues that Trumpians love.
As expected, the questions are biased in their tone. One example: “Do you currently trust the federal government bureaucracy to act in the best interest of the citizens of our nation?” Well I used to before the government bureaucracy was taken over by incompetents, liars, and thieves like Wilbur Ross and William Barr. Not to mention all the non-confirmed “acting” cabinet and sub-cabinet positions. It is a scandal that we don’t have a confirmed Secretary of Defense since Gen. Mattis’ resignation (about which Trump lied on Twitter). We are already on our second “Acting Secretary” there. So with the keyword “currently” in mind, I would have to say no.
It is disturbing that this baldly partisan maneuver is trying to conflate itself with the constitutionally mandated official census. It should be illegal to do so.
1
Corrected submission:
The headline tells me "Now Let's Get the Census Count Right" and that we should devote our energy to making the census accurate and secure.
I take this opportunity to ask what the the words "right" and "accurate" might mean if the Times and readers had read Kenneth Prewitt's OpEd published August 21, 2013 with title: "Fix the Census’ Archaic Racial Categories" and then read his new book "What Is Your Race?..." and begun the task of fixing, that is getting rid of those categories.
A census that still places Americans in race boxes created by racists for the purpose of creating and maintaining a racial order can be neither seen as right nor accurate.
Someday, probably not in my lifetime, a serious discussion of Prewitt's proposal will be undertaken.
By the way, Prewitt is no radical but rather a Columbia University Professor with an unusual understanding of the Census, an understanding based on his having been the Bureau's Director.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
It is sad to see what this once great nation has become. From leadership of the free world to now human rights abuses, propaganda and dictatorship.
The Justice Department sent a 1-line email to New York plaintiffs who had filed suit to block the printing of the 2020 census if it contained that question. The email said that Justice was not going to fight that "printing" suit. Wilbur Ross then announced that the printing of the census without the question had begun.
The press misconstrued this unrelated story to mean that the Justice Department was no longer seeking any ways to include the question in the US census anywhere. In fact, this exchange had nothing to do with the Supreme Court's remand of the census case to the Maryland lower court.
When Trump protested that the press version of what happened was wrong, Justice sent a message indicating that they were indeed moving forward with (i.e., not having interrupted, and then restarted) the preparation of the remand case, which indeed involves a search for ways (possibly nonexistent) to still include the citizenship question on the 2020 census.
I am not a Trump supporter, so I am surprised to have to conclude that the communication snafu here was entirely created by the press.
2
So the Supreme court means nothing?
1
Why don’t they add a question to determine which political party we identify with? And gender? Kill three birds with one stone!!
4
It's clear that this administration does not want a fair census. Who knows, it might just end up in more fairly drawn Congressional and other voting districts. That would be the end of the Republican control of many states as well as Washington.
It seems the point is to remind his base that even on the attempt to count how many citizens each state has, the system is geared towards a preference to overcount non-citizens than to possibly undercount citizens who are now afraid of revealing that they have non-citizens who perhaps could be there illegally.
It is however a worthy question on why a country cannot actually get an accurate count of people within each state and determine how many citizens it has.
The next census is in 10 years, even if it is not possible to know until 2029 how many citizens (and non-citizens) is in the country, work should start on ensuring this goes back in for the next census.
Meanwhile, it should make it clear to some voters that when it comes to the intent of the assignment of number of districts and congressional seats, the establishment would prefer to include non-voting citizens in order to provide states with higher percentages of non-citizens more funding and more seats than to have a proper allocation to increase states that have been net beneficiaries of incoming migration of citizens from these other states that have been losing more residents.
Perhaps this will make them think about how they should vote in 2020.
@JimG, there is no reason to think that non-citizens will be 'over counted' which in fact would be quite difficult. The goal is to avoid under-counting them. The Constitution's stated requirement for the census is to count all PERSONS, not just citizens. Thus all residents need to be counted. This is because of the constitution, not because of any fanciful 'establishment' that would 'prefer to include non-voting citizens.' The Constitution requires that non-voters, including children, at the time women, non-citizens, all be counted.
2
@JimG
I.e., trying to count the illegals is an effort to pack Congress with Democrats and an effort to rob those legally entitled to federal dollars and divert the money to those here illegally.
After all this seesawing by Trump, who does not recognize any laws, all that is assured is that the US Census in 2020 will result in an undercount.
Many people will be afraid to send in the form.
Trump has been allowed by the American people to turn the USA into some kind of feudal fiefdom for his own, immensely flawed, irredeemably immature self-concept to revel in tormenting.
And now you're stuck.
1
@Maria Ashot
The only people "afraid to send in the form" will be the illegals--and they SHOULD be afraid. With any luck, they'll be scared enough to get out of this country and, if they want, get in line like everyone else to come here legally.
1
It is interesting that obtaining factual data concerning the number of illegal immigrants, or undocumented immigrants who have broken laws passed by congress, has raised such ire and passion. It is easier to support some positions based upon emotion and in the absence of data. Based upon history one would have thought that bastions of rationality would prefer data to emotion. However, it appears that rationality has been consumed in the fires of politics and all is reduced to emotion
@Curmudgeon. It does make one wonder if the actual number itself is so large that it would make people realize the scale of the problem here.
Certainly it would explain why the Democrats this time want Open Borders --- this large number of obedient New Democrat voters would certainly be a numerically big enough reason to let them ignore the blue collar union workers who are the most likely to lose economically from wage competition.
I am so blessed to be married to a non-citizen for half a century.
Trump has this totally ignorant belief that someone is a citizen or an illegal. My wife was born in Scotland - just like Trump's mother and has never been in this country illegally.
1
@Ken
If you apply to stay in the country legally, then that's what everybody wants. The issue is not those who have applied to enter and stay legally. And eventually those who immigrate legally tend to become very good citizens as they have historically agreed to pick up the same value system and appreciation for the pursuit of happiness that has served everyone well.
The problem is people who bypass the application and legal entry to claim to be refugees ---- this is an act of queue jumping. Further more, the new intersectionality ideas are preventing the normal assimilation and the melting pot method where new immigrants have historically grown towards prosperity and become just like any other American that came in before them for more than a century.
Further more, you are now seeing policies pursued by elitists that will in the long term hurt the capability of new legal immigrants to assimilate and become prosperous citizens. Language skills for example is not a racist issue. Every South American who enter the country know that in order to have a better future, they will have to learn the language that most people understand --- this is an economic survival issue.
If you can't speak to most of the potential customers in their language, you can't sell them the goods and services that your store or company needs.
If you own the company you put your own investment at risk. If you work for a company, you place your company at a disadvantage.
1
@Ken
No one is objecting to the presence of non-citizen legal residents. That's not the issue.
1
Now I know that the direct digital database creation means the Administration intends to use the Census as a resource for a national dragnet.
Trump will never accept the establishment of separation of powers as written in the Constitution. He is unable to make the transition from all-powerful owner of a company who answered to no one, to the presidency. That is why he idolizes all powerful leaders such as Putin, Kim, and Ergodan. The conservative controlled SCOTUS blasted him for coming up with a contrived reason for requiring a statement of citizenship on the census form but he cannot accept rejection, which is why we voters need to reject him in 2020.
Voters have only one way to end Trump:
Vote him and Republicans -- who are all supporting his behavior-- OUT of office on November 3, 2020.
2
Folks, remember: most of us will be asked to fill out the census online. We won't be allowed by simple technology to skip the oppressive question about our blood rights. The only protest possible is our bodies, in the streets.
How is asking the citizenship question rigging the count?
1
Question added or not; they have already rigged the census by making it muddy and messy.
They will put one of their sponsor to run the census, who can't count it right. Just like they had no idea of how many undocumented children in the US custody. This will be a just bigger number.. try multiplying with 100,000,000.
Where are the Republican senators and congressmen and women? Why aren't they speaking up? Why do they sit in silence? Why are they allowing our constitution to be dismantled? When, if ever, will they get the spine to stand up for what is right? Are all of you cowards?
2
Answers to your questions: 1) Watching closely to ascertain what the Party wants, 2) They are afraid of losing support/money from the Party, 3) They are cowards, 4) The dismantling of our Constitution does not affect their immediate position of power, money, and perks, 5) Never, 6) Yes. You're welcome.
1
This all goes back to the flawed and distorted reasoning, supporting the validity of the question to be included in the next Census.
The SCOTUS has made known its decision.
The Census question is now turning into a question on our country's legal system. Questioning or challenging our Judiciary - the third branch of government.
Where is this leading to?
2
@citizen
"Where is this leading to?" you ask.
Answer: Hungary. Turkey.
if there is a citizenship question on my questionnaire, I will not respond to it. Nor should anyone. Period. We need a national campaign to boycott it.
How can asking if you are an American Citizen be considered "rigging" the census? This is definitely a media/dem push that is totally unnecessary. If this had never been publicized it would have just been another routine question. But because Trump is in the WH the media has to come up with these ridiculous issues to cause him another headache.
4
The origin of the census question comes from a scheme to undercount immigrants through fear of completing the census form, hence the Supreme Court decision. If Trump has a headache over this, the simply solution is to take two aspirin and resign in the morning.
5
@Donald It is quite easy to understand. The Census is not a count of citizens, but rather of everyone in the Country without concern for their status.
It is a crime to lie on the Census form. It states so and provides the code section right on the form.
Now let us look at how this would work when an extended family lives under one roof. The grandmother has lived in the US for 40 years, but she originally arrived on a student visa. While in school she fell in love with a man and they had two children. However, they never legally married as she worried that filling out the marriage license application would reveal her situation. Both of the children are US Citizens since they were born in the US. So the census person comes to record the census information and the father is faced with revealing his life long partner (the grandmother) is not a citizen but has lived here 40 years. The family believes that this could trigger Homeland Security to come to raid their home and take their grandmother away. Her husband, a citizen is fearful of lying on the form. It is likely the family will not fill out the form. They will avoid the census worker and not answer the door. Now we have three citizens that will not be counted along with one non-citizen. They will use our highways and the countries resources, but they won't be counted. Now multiply this by 1000's of similar situations. They are paying taxes, without representation. This distorts the census accuracy!
9
@Donald
You make a good point, if it were a benign question no one would notice. But then the WH wouldn't weigh in, would it? Trump makes his prejudice well known. He alone makes his own headaches.
4
This census question and Trump's response to it, represents in a nutshell the problem Trump presents to our governing class, our elected representatives, who have sworn to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the land. The Supreme Court has spoken but that means nothing to this lawless, corrupt, clueless demagogue who sits in the President's chair. Does anyone imagine that a defeat in 2020 will impress him at all? He will not accept the results in that election unless he gets a landslide victory. I fear the chaos and division he will sow if he should be defeated which, I pray God, he will be.
4
Republicans have systematically tried to undermine the census in their favor for decades. It's impossible to count every single person with finite resources, but it's possible to determine the systematic ways that the census will undercount certain groups of residents, particularly the urban poor and people of color. It's then scientifically possible to make corrections to get to a more accurate total.
But, no surprise, Republicans are forcefully against science, and adequate resources, being brought to bear on the census because an undercount favors their interests. They gain more representation in the House as well as state and local govts. This means more resources to favored constituents and more policies favorable to those already doing well.
It's just like partisan gerrymandering and voter suppression. Shape the electorate for strictly partisan gain and you get to pick your voters while disadvantaging your opponents.
It's also like stuffing the federal bench with young right wing ideologues. Pretend you're following a fair and balanced process when the real intention is to stack judicial rulings in your favor. It's no accident that corporations are people, money is speech, a Muslim ban is constitutional, union dues are largely optional, and partisan gerrymandering is 'too difficult' to disallow.
Why should Republicans try to win on ideas when they can rig things in their favor. It's not what the founders intended but it's been the Republican way. Happy 4th.
11
@Michael Tyndall. Hillary won 3M more votes. Obama was elected twice. Tell me more about those wily Wepublicans.
The Republicans in the Supreme Court were appointed to promote Republican policies.
They are only following orders.
8
In your perpetual efforts to appear psychologically perfect and above legal reproach, you constantly fail to understand and tell the public about the worst we face. The fact that the Census is being digital rang the alarm bells. I had previously suspected the worst intentions behind the census question, but now I know the digital database they intend to create real time is a predecessor to a national dragnet. Wake up and smell the White House. It stinks.
5
A simple Google search yields the following:
Q. What percentage of the population is without broadband Internet options?
A. Approximately 19 million Americans—6 percent of the population—still lack access to fixed broadband service at threshold speeds.
In rural areas, nearly one-fourth of the population —14.5 million people—lack access to this service.
Given this fundamental glitch in the proposed system, the accuracy and reliability of an online census are compromised from the start.
4
What is the fear of adding a citizenship question to our census? The same question is on the entry cards passed out to every passengers on airlines, cruise ships, landing at our airports from a foreign country. A U.S. Customs official will ask one the same question if one drives into our country from Mexico or Canada. A census of citizenship status in a country goes directly to who ought to decide how our country is governed, for whom, by whom and for what purpose, and to know who holds the power of our sovereignty. Sovereignty is our individual political power. Why shouldn’t we know who has and who has not that power? As the sovereign, Americans reserve that right to citizens, not to visitors, legal or illegal, who have allegiances to foreign powers.
Since ancient times all democracies have established rules on who is qualified to exercise the people’s sovereignty. We object to foreign governments interfering in our elections for the precise reason that the Russians, British, Israeli, Chinese, and foreign commercial interests of those countries cross the line when they push their countries interests in our domestic civil legislation and in our political elections. In ancient Athens, a stranger who “‘inter-meddled in the assemblies of the people was punished with death.’ This is because such a man usurped the rights of sovereignty.” Montesquieu, “The Spirit of Laws.
5
@Bayou Houma
That's because the census isn't about voting or who can vote. The Constitution specifically states the census is to count "All residents", not citizens, not which party you're in, just residents. The information the question purports to want is available from other sources (as you noted), so is its purpose? And if it has no purpose, why have it?
12
@JustJeff
What, then, is the purpose of the questions other than residence? What’s the value of asking us to self-identify our race? It’s a curious puzzle how in our country where race is irrelevant that you or the government would want to know how many whites or blacks live in which states and cities? And how is race more relevant to residence than simply asking immigrants whether they are citizens?
Some questions:
Is there no way to declare Trump in contempt of court for ignoring the SCOTUS ruling?
2. Social media seems to be undermining democracy in so many ways as disinformation campaigns distribute fake news. Now that we're better acquainted with the dangers of social media to host propaganda, shouldn't we eliminate or completely redesign certain forums such as FB?
3
@Anima No. If you are thinking the Government should shut them down or order them to "screen" their subject matter, you forget our rights as citizens to read or post our opinions that are not aligned with our government. If the government wanted to shut misleading, falsified and propaganda publishing companies, their first stop on this mission should be Fox News. But they are barred from doing so by the 1st and 5th Amendments to the Constitution. You are a customer of these platforms and you can choose not to use them. If you want their policies changed the best way to force that is to spread the word of your issues with them and seek a boycott of their services until they address the issue(s). We should not look to the government to fix everything we don't like. It becomes a very dangerous path to pursue.
1
Here's my guess as to what happens. They print the forms with the question on them,then if it is decided the question should not be there...very quietly, out in the back behind the barn they will whisper you don't have to answer that question. Mean while the damage is done. It's called the sneaky dishonest way...something djt is well versed in.
4
Like most attempts to thwart President Trump and his plans to restore America, the simplest solutions are probably best used by the President.
If there are too many people crossing the border, leading to over crowded detention facilities, why not declare martial law? If an illegal is caught, they go straight back across the border. No need for costly tariffs or long waits for a court date.
So, with the border effectively closed and a "catch and return" policy in effect, everything immigration related can be addressed and fixed with Comprehensive Immigration Reform. Congress can take it's time, maybe a few recesses and do a little campaigning, before tackling the hard work.
As for the census, no need to spend all of that money on ink. The president can say, "If you and however many US citizens, live in the home, just write, 'There are X number of US citizens in this house." No one is forced to comply. No long wait for the courts to act. Just good old fashion American "gitter-done-ism".
The Founding Fathers would be proud of how we have striven ".. to form a more perfect Union,..."
2
@Mike, the Constitution requires a census of everyone living in the US, not of "citizens." So your simple question about the number of US citizens in the house would yield the wrong answer.
2
@Mike "Your Republic of Texas," told me all I needed to know and after reading your post, I told myself, why even read what comes after this. One direct answer to your post is the problem is much larger than putting the "gitter-done-ism" crowd on the job. What you suggest would violate the Geneva Convention and the responsibilities all countries had to asylum seekers.
The largest part of these people is running for their lives from something more threatening than even the deplorable conditions we are placing them in. Their lives and their children's lives were in jeopardy, and they are seeking safety.
When gang members in their country threaten a family that if their 10-12-year-old children do not start working for the gang, they will come back to kill the whole family. The police are not in control and will not protect you. I believe if that was the situation you faced with your family, you might be tempted to do what these families are doing. You are going to try to protect your family as best you can.
By the way, the "work for the gang" that they are forcing your children into includes doing things that you would fight to your death to keep your children from experiencing.
Still, hold your beliefs? Then there is no help for you and I am ashamed you are a fellow American. This is a complicated issue and we need to address it in the countries that are the origin of the problem. Not become a country that ships them back to that horror.
1
Don't tell Donald Trump what to do! Haven't you heard? The Stable Genius is always right, and even when he's wrong, you Fake News people will report the wrong part, occluding the right part, just because you're Fake News. Got that?
Sorry; I had to say that because, living in the Trump universe, I sometimes feel more akin to the Cheshire Cat than to reality.
Keep up the fine work that has kept me a NYT subscriber for over 50 years. As some Persian Sufi poet may have said, "This too shall pass." Eventually we will have a real president again.
8
A citizenship question - the undercount would include an estimated 13 million green card holders and over one million International F-1 students. The States most affected would be California, New York, Texas, and Florida.
7
The census is important. It should be given the wherewithal to see that it is properly carried out and administered.
It has been shown that computerized systems are unreliable and can be tampered with. In the census, and at the ballot box, we need to return to paper ballots, and pay whatever it costs to make the census count and voting are done right in a manner that leaves a paper trail.
12
Let’s go to paper-paper ballots and paper census data collection.Electronic data can be rearranged, destroyed, sold and generally manipulated.The Republicans have found that it is easier to win by rigging elections than it is to win the old fashioned way,by garnering more votes with all eligible people voting .No tricks, no gimmicks-those are in-American!
12
America has reached a point of alternative reality, when lawyers who are officers of the court and who have sworn to uphold the Constitution are looking for a work-around to a Supreme Court decision. The President is not a lawyer, not a legal scholar in any form whatsoever. He's not a king or a potentate. Our founding Father's carefully devised a Constitution so this would not happen. Our fractured politics have made the leaders of his own party in the legislative branch weak. The Democratic leaders in the House need to strap on prosthetic spines as they have gone weak as well. It is not enough to win the next election, this President need to be impeached and removed to set a clear example to him and those who follow this is an entirely unacceptable way to govern in this Country.
13
@Bill
The SCOTUS has essentially blessed the citizenship question. It's now just a question of getting the case for it made correctly. So, will you support the SCOTUS when it allows the question?
Progressives are consistently on the wrong side of immigration. The "right" and "accurate" census count would include a count of citizens and non-citizens. They want the border door forced wide open, actively work to stop any restrictions on entering but then don't want an "accurate" count of how many who have come through that door.
4
@AACNY
The Constitution says count "residents" of the United States, not "citizens".
1
@AACNY
You're just making stuff up. Researchers have demonstrated that there is no accurate census if the "citizenship question" is included. You cannot quote any national political leader who wants "the boder door forced wide open."
1
@AACNY. Do you seriously object to counting everyone? The constitution says we must. Not counting everyone is not an option.
1
Unfortunately, the Republican Supreme Court ruled that rigging the elections through partisan gerrymandering is ok, so they should be ok with the census being rigged for partisan reasons.
The best court that money can buy.
14
The Constitution requires counting the "whole number of people" and nothing else.
All the other questions that have been asked by the Census are extra, and likely all have a damaging effect on the response rate. Asking about citizenship is neither unique or unprecedented, so it should have never gone to the Supreme Court, it should have been resolved between Congress and the White House like things are supposed to be.
3
I understood that the census must be taken every 10 years. It's in the Constitution. How does Trump change the Constitution at will?
4
@Too Old To Care The Constitution says the census must be taken "within a period of (i.e., AT LEAST) every ten years, in such Manner as they (the Congress) may by Law direct." It doesn't say it must be a Domesday Book enumeration, and it doesn't say the census can ask about respondents everything but which shoe they put on first. Its purposes were to "apportion" taxes among the states and determine their appropriate representation in the House of Representatives. Everything else is intrusive data-mining.
10
@DMH Congress has abdicated responsibility and allowed this scenario to work its' way through the courts. McConnell is not doing anyone favors at this point and frankly should be brought before the Senate ethics committee.
5
That this President is so anxious and determined to get the citizenship question on the census should be evidence enough that he wants to rig the election. Everything he does is about getting himself reelected. If this issue gets to the Supreme Court again, it is clear to me that the Court must vote it down.
7
@JimVanM
The Supreme Court already ruled that rigging elections with partisan gerrymandering is ok.
Apparently, it is fine to rig elections.
2
@Grove
Yours is an incorrect, albeit popular, interpretation of the SCOTUS' recent decision on gerrymandering. The SCOTUS didn't say it's fine to rig elections. It said it's Congress' job to address it.
1
@AACNY I was referring to the Court's pause on the citizenship issue.
I don’t support Trump but I support our right as Americans to know the citizenship of people in this country. It’s a fair question. We act like this is violating rights of people when in fact many people are here illegally violating our rules. We have better things to argue about. Ask the question on the census.
6
@Jessica Edgar
The census is meant to count all of the people in the country.
That is how it was set up in the Constitution.
5
@Jessica Edgar: Take it up with the Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution which Republicans are supposed to admire beyond anything else. It says Persons are to be counted, not citizens.
9
@Jessica Edgar
No, it is not true that "many people are here illegalyy violating our rules." There is not a shred of evidence, in all of these years, of illegal voting, but you choose to repeat this lie.
1
How is getting accurate pertinent, meaningful information on all the residents in real time and ensuring that it is not misused for partisan purposes rigging the census?
6
@Girish Kotwal
You miss the whole point. The Republicans don't want to use the citizen question to rig the CENSUS, but rather to rig the drawing of the boundaries of electoral constituencies so as to maximize the number of seats they get in Congress.
10
@Bernard from Boston. Your fear mongering is unjustified. I am independent and on our independence day I will not support the dirty politics from either party. Let them duke it out. None of my beeswax. I am just expressing my opinion on how I think the census could be a meaningful exercise that will provide pertinent information in real time. To me it is like designing an ethical human trial. If it is an exercise in futility, I say don't waste money and time just for the sake of doing it.
2
@Girish Kotwal The count is supposed to be all inhabitants of the Country, not citizens. This would include legal aliens, illegal aliens etc. The question would clearly destroy the count. Further they are planning to use computers and the internet to transfer information which as we have seen can clearly be manipulated from foreign actors.
1
So the millions of immigrants (both legal and illegal) who live in Texas and Florida won't get counted? What about all of those rural red states that need immigrant workers to run their farms? Those workers won't get counted either?
Brilliant move, Republicans. You've slashed the number of EC votes for every solid red state. Of course if you're an immigrant living in a nice blue state full of sanctuary cities, the census might seem a lot less scary.
2
"malicious interference" is exactly what Trump Inc have been doing all along on the census. I worked the census in 2000 & 2010, it's not just the foreign-born who are holdouts. If my memory is right, the count in 2000 ended up being only about 65% accurate, that means about 1/3 people were (and always are) missed.
I found there are always plenty of white people who are paranoid & suspicious of anyone asking questions about their business. One man I talked to angrily refused to give me any info, insisted no one ever contact him again. I had to talk to his neighbor to find out he was going thru an acrimonious divorce and then go to the county offices to look at the divorce papers to find out the names and ages of his two little boys. One thing I noticed about the people who didn't want to be counted, they all had big angry chips on their shoulders, a lot of them were going thru a divorce at the time. A few said they were not going to give me anything but what was legally required by the Constitution, namely just their name plus the ages/sexes of everyone else living in the household (as per the 1st census in 1790). One county employee who called me back to give me the info after she realized the federal tax dollars her own office got was based on the census #'s. (She originally refused because her mother-in-law was one of the paranoid ones, they still lived on his mother's property.)
Getting an accurate count is hard enough as it is without making it even harder.
15
@Jeni I also worked on the 2010 census. I didn't have any 'incidents' but I remember a story in the Austin American Statesman about someone who threatened to shoot a census worker if she dared set foot on his property. Can't remember how it ended, but he was one of the anti-government white guys..... So, yes, getting that accurate count is hard in the best of circumstances.
7
We think that We were elected King of America. We are King Donald John Trump and We will not be denied.
We absolutely think that We can game the Supreme Court, and do exactly what We want.
We'll see about that, I suppose....
2
If “We the People” of the United States as a society seek and have many “Constitutional Rights” to protect our “Life, Liberty and Pursuit if Happiness” with our “Freedom” then obtaining accurate and reliable information is a key element to not only secure our freedoms and rights, but it is also a necessity to expand and extend these freedoms.
We also demand and rely upon that stewards of another key component of our nation that binds our rights is the “Freedom of the Press” to be the conduit to obtain and provide accurate data and information, not by promoting half or partial information but truthful and complete representative facts, news, reports and statistics to seek and determine resolutions on many social as well as personal issues, not from behind closed doors or false or misrepresentation of data to manipulate a political agenda.
If we cannot “count” on our institutions and representatives to provide pure, accurate and accountable information, then we not only fool ourselves but our American Dreams.
3
Maybe Trump could present an acceptable rationale for the Republican originalists on the Court. They could argue that only the persons in the original 13 states should be counted and not all of us "Johnny Come Latelys" who live elsewhere.
Unfortunately, the persons of those states closest to Mr. Trump's Tower, voted against him 2-1.
12
@JMT
Congratulations on having the wrongest interpretation of "originalist" that I have ever seen. A conservative originalist would say that the practice of slavery and the suppression of votes based on race is unconstitutional because they violate the intentions of the authors of those amendments while a liberal "living constitution" justice would say that the prohibition against slavery is not absolute; it's just a guideline and would have to be weighed against the county's need for cotton.
2
@FreddyB What are you talking about? An "originalist" would say that since there is nothing prohibiting slavery in the Constitution as it was originally written by the Founders themselves, we should not be able to change or amend the constitution in any way to formally make slavery illegal.
The entire point of an "originalist" and their philosophy is that the Judiciary DOES NOT get to opine about the "intentions" of the founders. The entire philosophy of originalism is that nothing else apart from what they literally wrote into the Constitution matters.
3
@Samuel
You have been deceived about originalism by left-wing propagandists. What you are saying is completely wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Originalism
1
Just another page in the corrupt Trump playbook: Use fraud to achieve an advantage. We just have to hope there is enough remorse from those who voted for Trump in 2016 to make him a one-term president.
9
"Malicious interference" is a true and useful two word summary of Trump and the Gop's governance.
11
@MikeM.--Not "governance--More like attempted enslavement.
@MikeM. Not to mention incompetence.
No one in this country under legitimate visa or illegal will answer any census questions for fear the government will later use that information against them somehow. Trump has won already.
3
A citizen question would benefit Republicans. That's all there is to it.
11
Under the current system, representation in both The House of Representatives and Electoral College is based not upon the number of citizens in each state but upon a count of all people living in each state, including non-citizens.
It’s seems odd that states with relatively large numbers of non-citizens, including illegal aliens, are given more power, more representation on the backs of people who can’t vote.
It reminds me a bit of the inflated federal strength of the pre-Civil War South, where white Southerners wealded more power in Congress and in Presidential elections based on the census considering slaves as being 2/3 of a person. Those slaves had no rights, no vote, but their existence certainly made their masters and other whites more powerful in Washington.
Either give non-citizens the right to vote or take away the additional representative power given to citizens in states that happen to have large numbers of non-citizens living within their borders.
3
@Chris
"Odd that states with relatively large numbers of non citizens ...are given more power"
Actually, they don't have more power, or Trump would have lost as overwhelmingly in the Electoral College as he did in the popular vote among citizens
But each voter in Wyoming counts 70 times each voter in California
2
@Lynn It's only 3 or so times, not 70.
It takes 200,000 voters in Wyoming to equal 1 electoral vote, and it takes about 750,000 voters in California to equal the same 1 electoral vote.
But the idea that anyone living in the "Midwest" could legitimately whine about another group of Americans have artificially inflated voting power is beyond laughable.
2
@Chris
Yes, the fact that non-citizens are used to determine representation but should not identified as such makes little sense.
3
The Census Undercount Ajustment is the key issue. The Commerce Dept. blocked this methodology during the last 2 Census for political reasons resulting in an undercount of minority groups. With all the furor about the citizenship question, the undercount will be magnified. The Trump Administration already has what it wants. Gerrymandered census results. I am a career government statistician with Census experience .
5
It appears to me, that asking this question is a basic violation of fifth amendment. Would northern states in 1850 tolerate a census question asking if they were a runaway slave?
4
@Jimk. Why? Not being a citizen is not an offense. Plenty of people here are lawful residents. 13,250,000 at last count.
2
@Overpop Then what's the point of asking it in the first place? What does the government or the American people gain by that knowledge, except a more specified target if their goal is persecution?
1
@Samuel
The point of asking is just to know how many people are living in the country. No other reason is needed, if it's not provided by the U.S. Constitution.
1
The headline tells me "Now Let's Get the Census Count Right" and after that the we should devote our energy to making the census accurate and secure.
I take this opportunity to ask what the the words "right" and "accurate" might mean if the Times and readers had read Kenneth Prewitt's OpEd published August 21, 2013 with title:
"Fix the Census’ Archaic Racial Categories"
and then read his new book "What Is Your Race?..." and begun the task of fixing, that is getting rid of those categories.
A census that still places Americans in race boxes created by racists for the purpose of creating and maintaining a racial order can be neither seen as right nor accurate.
Someday, probably not in my lifetime, Prewitt's discussion of Prewitt's proposal will be undertaken.
By the way, Prewitt is no radical but rather a Columbia University Professor with an unusual understanding of the Census, an underderstanding based on his having been the Bureau's Director.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
12
We've just completed our very honest census - people tell me its the most honest census that's ever been done - and it turns out there are no people living in Democratic districts at all. They were all just voter fraud and media fake news. Never existed!
7
Should Trump and his Justice Department succeed in placing a citizenship question on the Census, despite the recent Supreme Court ruling, that clearly illegal action will provide clear rationale for the House to immediately initiate impeachment proceedings against both Trump and Barr.
6
@Elan Rubinstein
When Trump and Justice get the citizenship question on the census it will be because of the SCOTUS not in spite of it. It's only a technicality that has prevented its inclusion. The SCOTUS has basically said fix this one item.
2
@Elan Rubinstein. And the corrupt GOP Senate will immediately refuse to convict and find Trump legally innocent. The system is completely rigged in favor of the corrupt GOP, and thanks Americans who vote GOP, you did it to us. You've opened the oven doors, totally unaware that they will march you in, too.
According to United States Code, Title 13 (Census), Chapter 7 (Offenses and Penalties), SubChapter II, if you're over 18 and refuse to answer all or part of the Census, you can be fined up to $100. If you give false answers, you're subject to a fine of up to $500. If you omit answering a question, your form is still used for enumeration purposes.
I'm a citizen, but if the citizenship question does finally make its way onto the coming census, I am seriously considering not answering it. I'll pay the $100.
10
Absolutely! I will not answer it.
Do people who live and work in the United States from other countries who were brought here by large corporations deserve to be represented in United States government?
A few years ago I worked as a contractor for a foreign company operating in the United States. I am an American citizen by the way. The hundreds of people who worked for that company and were not US citizens paid taxes, rented apartments, bought clothes and food locally, had children in public schools, and so forth. I have no doubt that, given the current administration's hostility toward foreigners
and "minorities" (whatever that means these days) that those people would be very wary of participating in a census that asked a citizenship question.
It boils down to why are you asking? We know the answer to that! That question was added to the census to deter minorities in the United States from participating in our national life.That is a proven fact.
Ask the CEOs of the top 50 corporations in the United States how business would be if all of the Green Card workers in their companies left tomorrow. Do you think that would impact their business?
11
What would happen if a significant number of people just left the question blank? Civil disobedience.
7
@Deborah If it is an electronic form, some fields may be required. That could prevent submission of the form if not completed.
1
It's my understanding that incomplete questionnaires are subject to follow-up via a phone interview or personal visit from a census taker. I'm not sure about the precise procedure. It seems unlikely that every omission would receive that attention but some effort would have to be made to achieve the most complete & accurate count possible.
@mike4vfr...now, suppose nobody answered their (now illegal) question? It might take a while to follow that up, hm? When they get to me (I'm a citizen, but will not answer) it's going to be a long discussion. Long. Very long. It will go to the courts...
If some of the energy spent on denouncing the citizenship question were used to educate illegal immigrant communities, perhaps the census could be accurate regardless of whether the contentious question is asked or not.
3
@Overpop. Educate them as to what? That Trump will not use the information to seek them out and lock them into detention camps where people are suffering and dying? Yeah, convince them of that. They are well educated as to what is really going on in this country.
The census issue shows the true extent of the Trump Derangement syndrome. The purpose of the census is to:
How Our Data Are Used
To determine the distribution of Congressional seats to states.
Mandated by the U.S. Constitution
Used to apportion seats in the U.S. House of Representatives
Used to define legislature districts, school district assignment areas and other important functional areas of government
Find out about the 2020 Census Redistricting Data Program
To make planning decisions about community services, such as where to:
Provide services for the elderly
Build new roads and schools
Locate job training centers
To distribute more than $675 billion in federal funds to local, state and tribal governments each year.
Census data informs how states and communities allocate funding for:
Neighborhood improvements
Public health
Education
Transportation
Much more
To provide Age Search information for:
Qualifying for Social Security and other retirement benefits
Passport applications
Proving relationship in settling estates
Researching family history or a historical topic
So, collecting accurate information is the main point. 3 years ago and for the 225 years previous to that no one would have batted an eye at a citizenship question. It’s another example of childish irrational behavior. in apportioning the above, you want to count citizens not non citizens unless you support apportioning my tax dollars to illegals. You already do of course, tomorrow, I’m operating on one
6
@breal The Constitution says that every 10 years there shall be an enumeration of "all persons" in the country. It does not say "all citizens," and no census in the history of the country has ever limited the census to citizens.
10
@breal
The anti-Trump mentality has so grossly distorted the immigration issue that it's now almost impossible to respond rationally.
For example, surely it makes sense to discourage immigrants from taking enormous risks to cross our border. But instead of discouraging such treacherousness, we have a democrat going down to the border to help them cross. Despite its being the right thing to do, no democrat will now dare to discourage such trips as Obama did.
Precisely why is it inappropriate to determine the number of actual citizens of the United States, which was founded, fought for, and presumably, exists, for the benefit, welfare, and safety precisely of those citizens?
It is not inappropriate to determine the number of others present, whether residents by law or by stealth, or accepted for “humanitarian” reasons. It is not inappropriate to have legal reasons to do this. It is not inappropriate legally to apportion benefits to such. It is not, however, inappropriate for government to consider their citizenship status when doing this.
Why is it illegitimate to determine, by count, the burden of support that non-citizens place upon the native or naturalized citizenry, so that it can reasonably be planned for and implemented?
Politically motivated partisan accusations of “rigging” apply to the actions of both major political parties, and are misplaced, to say the least.
6
@Arthur Taub MD PhD
Because whether you like it or not, immigrants, both legal and illegal, and our citizens use our roads, drink our water, flush their toilets, go to our schools etc. In short everybody exists, takes up space and they live their lives.
This living creates an economic and physical burden to to our land and infrastructure. The 'government' is the entity that is supposed take all that into account and provide the necessary services to support the population so we have a functioning society.
Funding and representation to support that society is based on headcount not citizen count.
This 'citizenship' question is yet one more wedge issue used to divide our nation - in my opinion.
10
@Arthur Taub MD PhD Because nowhere in the entire US Constitution does it say that the rights we are granted ONLY apply to citizens. Every person living here, citizen or not, is entitled to our Constitutional Rights, no matter how much you people try to deny it, and this ploy is a transparent attempt by the government to deny them that.
1
Undermining the process by, "incompetence or malicious interference," has been the goal all along. Why would anyone believe that the Autocrat in Chief would pay attention to a trivial issue like a Supreme Court ruling?
12
The NYT Editorial Board does not seem to understand the Trump administration. Because Trump is “devoting his energy to ensure that this vital process IS undermined by malicious interference”. His malicious interference. That’s the whole point. The minority GOP doesn’t retain their power if there’s an accurate count. And Trump is not about to play by the rules and lose.
23
It wasn't that long ago that we heard TV and radio ads every year requiring all "aliens" to register with the government.
Of course, they couldn't vote back then.
1
@JD Smith: they can't vote now, either. You can only vote if you are a US citizen. Do you not know that?
2
Very simple situation. Trump is not accountable to anyone, even the SCOTUS who has two of his appointees. Certainly the lack of consequences of the Mueller report or the morbidity of his border detention centers has emboldened him. He prances with murderers of American citizens like KJU and MBS and jokes with Putin about corrupting our elections. When will Pelosi do what the constitution demands and start impeachment hearings? When will she have had enough?
9
@Daniel Salazar. If the House impeaches. Trump, the Senate will REFUSE to convict and Trump will be legally innocent. You have noted how corrupt the GOP is - why in the world would you think impeachment would ever work so long as the Senate is in GOP hands? Impeachment by the House is a complete dead end that can only benefit Trump and the corrupt GOP.
1
Congressional Seats are determined by the census. Counting non-citizens means they will count as much as a regular citizen when apportioning the them (435 seats which is the fixed number now). To me this is the issue that seems to be ignored. I wonder how many people railing against 'the Question' are aware of this consequence. My guess, not many.
3
The Supreme Court settled the crucial issue by ruling that “the Enumeration Clause permits Congress, and by extension the Secretary, to inquire about citizenship on the census questionnaire.” The citizenship question is constitutional.
The Supreme Court also found that decision to reinstate the question “was supported by the evidence” and was “reasonable and reasonably explained, particularly in light of the long history of the citizenship question on the census.”
But the Supreme Court ruled the Commerce Department has to go back to the District Court and dispose its “pretextual” reasons for reinstating the question.
The assumption is that Commerce Secretary Ross wants to give states citizenship data so they can base voting district maps on the number of citizens eligible to vote rather than the total number of residents. States in danger of losing congressional seats or Electoral College votes could use the data to advocate for changes in the way congressional seats and Electoral College votes are allocated.
Disclosing these pretextual reasons to the district court should not create a problem. They are simply more valid reasons for reinstating the citizenship question.
4
@William Case
Thanks for the clarification although I think it will fall on deaf ears. As I understand it the Supreme Court in essence is stating go out and find a better reason for including the citizenship question that doesn't appear to run afoul of the 14th amendment.
1
@William Case
Interesting how many are defending the question's exclusion based on the SCOTUS' decision. They clearly don't realize the SCOTUS has essentially approved the question's inclusion.
1
So the census is going digital? What happens to those who are not online, such as some elders and those living in poverty?
I, for one, will NOT fill in a census form online, and if it appears I will NOT answer any citizenship question.
3
@Incorporeal Being If the census was going digital, there would be no need to worry about when the printing starts. They could continue editing the forms until mid-night on Dec. 31.
As far as elders and those living in poverty goes, in the past there have been government employees who literally canvas under bridges looking for homeless people. I'm not sure I'd count on it this year.
2
I'd like to make a prediction here. The census will go out without the citizenship question. This is just another example of Trump trying to "win" a news cycle by saying he is going to do something outrageous. He will quietly back down when there is something bigger in the news.
2
Without Republican Party support all this nonsense goes away ... make every Republican who does not denounce this administration accountable for its actions ... name names ... take it to their districts ... loudly and publicly ...
4
Are we still surprised? For trumpublicans, cheating is winning.
13
Questions:
1. If there is a question on citizenship, or if we do not like any question, are we free not to answer it? Or is that some sort of offense punishable by law?
2. The year a census is taking place, what are the chances of the Baby Jesus being born again (in time to vote Republican the following November)?
@Fran Pretty
1. If you are an undocumented alien you will likely not want to even talk to a pollster or see the form. Have you been reading the news lately? Yet everyone in the US, even undocumented aliens are supposed to be enumerated per the Constitution.
2. I'm pretty sure 3 or 4 month old babies don't vote. :-)
@Fran
You can be prosecuted for not answering a census question. The Census Bureau says the minimum fine is $500.
Babies are not old enough to vote in U.S. election, the chance of Baby Jesus voting the November after his rebirth would be nil. Besides, he wasn't an American citizen.
Omission of the citizenship question from the Census and those people and institutions that oppose including this question, suggest point blank that we as citizens do not and should not count and be counted!
The rouse of many arguments in support of excluding the question of citizenship on the census is fundamentally a means to mask their hypocrisy of calls for “Inclusiveness”.
Many progressive people aspire to ascertain the ideal of “Inclusiveness” but only with a partial sense of its definition since they often want to exclude people and their reasoning when people who differ with ideals may not fully support their agenda or goal.
There are many reasonable and justifying arguments that weigh in for supporting having the citizenship question on the census, and the most rational and important factor that any person would think progressives hold dear to their hearts and own reasoning is to bring “undocumented” people living in this nation into the fold for a means for them to be “inclusive” in democracy is to include them in the Census by differentiating the count of citizens, legal documented workers, and people here on student visas.
5
@MDCooks8
Evidently the Trump administration did not believe any of the reasonable and justifying arguments that supported adding the question. If they did, why did they find it necessary to weave a convoluted web of lies about their reasoning?. What about its documented purpose as a partisan tool to suppress participation in the census.
I don't support open borders and believe we need immigration reform. I was an employer for 30 years and only employed US citizens. The same can't be said about our President.
10
I might agree that the information could be useful to solving our nations problems except for one small point. This administration is deporting anyone and everyone it can lay hands on. Even legal resident non-citizens will hesitate to fill out the census for fear that their visas will be cancelled and they be summarily deported. Therefore, the census becomes inaccurate and simply a tool to further gerrymandering, stint on resources for needed infrastructure improvements, underfund schools, and creates a vast invisible underclass. That is the road to destruction of our nation.
1
In Canada, the census is anonymous, and I was under the impression that the U.S. census is, too. Am I wrong? If the U.S. census is, indeed, anonymous, how can the identity and location of a resident non-citizen be determined from a completed census questionnaire?
12
@Charmion Chaplin-Thomas
Micro chips implanted in the forms with GPS
2
@Charmion Chaplin-Thomas
Canada doesn't have an invasion.
@Charmion Chaplin-Thomas
It is not anonymous.
SCOTUS should have had the same opinion on the census as they did on gerrymandering, it is none of our business. But there is no accounting for John Roberts. He saw a tax when Congress said there wasn’t one. The citizenship question has been asked multiple times on the census. In fact, we should also be asking how many have a green card so we can see the extent of the problem.
3
@Rich Murphy John Roberts couldn't ignore the mendacity of Wilbur Ross and the Trump Administration about why it wanted the question on the census. The real reason turned out to be that it would reduce immigrant participation and hurt the Dems. And it has been seven decades since the citizenship question has been asked. It's purely political and, as usual, Trump and his people lied about it.
40
@Rich Murphy
The Supreme Court showed its partisanship on the Gerrymandering decision. Deferring to the authority of the state legislatures who Gerrymandered in the first place is an endorsement of political Gerrymandering. The "logic" that drawing districts is a state function is a tiny fig leaf to cover the disenfranchisement of American citizens.
The US Census is a Federal function, so that fig leaf doesn't exist at all for the citizenship question. The Trump administration lied to the Supreme Court throughout their presentation. The question originated with Commerce, not Justice, and it was intended to provide data to improve Gerrymandering, not to enforce the Voting Rights Act.
The Trump administration should be charged with perjury, not given another bite at a rotten apple.
18
I really don't understand why people are the least bit surprised that Donald Trump is attempting to rig the 2020 census results.
Counting, you see, has never been Trump's forte.
A few examples:
- He seriously misrepresented the number of people on the Washington Mall at his inauguration. The assembled multitudes amounted to far, far fewer people than he claimed were present. Photographs told the truth.
- He has continued to maintain that he won the 2016 election's popular vote when, in fact, he lost it by several million.
- He has a long history of being unable to count the financial solvency, or not, of his numerous businesses, resulting in repeated bankruptcies.
- His refusal to release his tax returns has given rise to the widespread belief that he is over-counting his wealth, and misrepresenting his income over many years.
So all of the hullabaloo about the upcoming census is completely in keeping with Trump's apparent inability to count, his disinterest in telling the truth, and his propensity to deal in fake numbers.
While his numbers are, and the census results should he get his way, would be FAKE NEWS, they certainly aren't new news.
Trump, as he has shown many times, may, indeed, be calculating, but he certainly can't calculate.
31
Your comment appears to have concerns about “accurate information” citing the “Fake News” President Trump often declares, however, don’t we as individuals seek and demand data and other forms of information that is accurate as possible to make well informed decisions?
So why oppose the “citizen” question on the census if this information will provide additional data to help make better decisions in many social issues?
5
@MDCooks8 Because the concern relates to a fear that including the question will result in undercounting, not accurately counting, U. S. residents.
21
So the omission of the citizenship question would have more of an impact on an “under count” then if it was included...
3
It is quite clear that, sensing their absolute plutocratic power at risk, it would not be a surprise to find members of this outlaw administration themselves trying to manipulate the census electronically, even if the Supremes provide no legal permission for the pernicious citizenship question. Whatever the way forward, like nearly all of democracy itself, the credibility of the census is history. If I had my way, we'd just turn running the nation and world over to the U.S. Women's soccer team. They see a problem, resolve to get around it, and just do it with grit and integrity.
3
The concern is that the census would show that, in some districts, 110% of the total number of citizens over 18 voted Democrat.
6
I think it's a legitimate question to ask, since non-citizens don't file income taxes with the IRS. If our tax dollars are being distributed on the basis of population, then it's worth noting who's paying the taxes and who isn't.
3
@Mark With my greencard, I sure wish I didn't have to pay income taxes! But I do. And even undocumented residents pay taxes in all sorts of ways, including income taxes and social security, if they get a pay cheque.
63
@Mark
It would be worth knowing if trump pays his taxes too, especially since it's been discovered that he lies about the value of his holdings.
17
@Mark Yes, they do pay taxes. Google IRS form 1040NR. Anybody who earns income in the US potentially has tax obligations. Death and taxes... They don't get a pass.
15
"The Trump administration hasn’t given up on getting a citizenship question on the census form. It should be devoting its energies to making sure the census is accurate and secure."
It is. Trump is trying to ensure that the Census is accurate by including the question. If it's not accurate, then why are we even bothering to spend the time, money and resources necessary to have it? It can't (or shouldn't) be used to determine anything, since it'll be incomplete.
9
@David R
The Census Burea stated that the Question would reduce participation in the census.
Holfeler proved that the Question would abet further republican gerrymandering.
13
Citizenship is not a goal or requirement of the census. it's one stated goal is to measure the population. Even assuming the best, most successful, thorough, no-one-freaks-out responding, this does nothing to make that count *more* accurate. But it does risk making it *in*accurate.
1
@Sqwerdon
The purpose of the Census is not in dispute. It's how that data is used that is the cause of the problem. Should every single American citizen's representation be influenced (diminished) by the number of non-citizens residing here?
1
Our descent into BananaRepublicHood continues apace. The law is no longer what we thought it was but rather what Trump says it is. This is an issue that should transcend political beliefs and designations of Left and Right. As Trump continues his assault on the integrity of our system of government we should all be united in opposing him and removing him from office as soon as possible. The longer he remains President the more degraded our country becomes.
46
@Andrew Santo
Banana republics are where they don't count citizens, or check IDs at the polling centers...
When are Americans going to understand that rules, the law, the Constitution, Supreme Court decisions - none of it applies to Republicans? Just look around.
62
I may skip this census. I live in a purple community with red representatives. Per the latest SCOTUS decision, my vote doesn't need to count, so why should I send tax dollars to be spent by representatives I don 't trust?
12
Because the only way the republicans can win is if they cheat. And I am sure someone will explain to me why there is nothing wrong with asking this question.
37
@Gary W. Priester
Seriously, the "only" way?
As far as explaining the citizenship question, it is stunning that it has _not_ been on the census, and its absence requires justification. A government deliberately ignorant about its citizenry cannot truly represent its citizens.
4
This article sounds very logical and reasonable. Therefore, it, by definition, is meaningless to Donald Trump and his supporters.
The only concerns the Donald ever has about actions or policy positions are:
1) "Will this benefit me personally?"
2) "Will this rile up my adoring fans?"
3) "Could this wind me up in jail?"
All other consideration are meaningless.
52
So if your bank, Social Security statement or utility bill has inaccurate data and/ or information resulting in under payment or over charging you for a water bill wouldn’t you want these documents to be accurate to earn or pay what you legally and rightfully are owed?
If the census cannot capture an accurate account of the population because people oppose the question of citizenship to determine how many people living in the US might be undocumented, then we all may be over charged and under paid....
3
@MDCooks8
There is a person, let's call him Steve. He believes that a certain idea about a given entity is true. (Call the idea A and call the identity P). The entity tells Steve that he is wrong about idea A...that in fact idea A is false.
Well then Steve believes that the entity P is wrong. So he appeals to some higher entity which decides that Steve is in fact lying.
So you keep believing Steve. You keep saying that idea A is true. At no point in your several comments today have you addressed why entity P is saying that idea A is false.
Steve - administration
idea A - asking citizenship question will improve accuracy
entity P - Census Bureau
higher entity - supreme court
Look, no doubt all the money that could have and should have gone to election security, to making the census secure etc., is being diverted for Donald’s pet projects like his DC grievance festival/show of force/campaign rally tomorrow night. Praying it is a ghost town in DC.
The more insecure our elections and our census, the more Donald, Mitch, and company benefit. The GOP can only win by cheating. There is no substance. They are so busy fomenting against companies like Nike, while caging kids and refusing to fund the 9/11 first responders medical fund. Mitch McConnell was shooting off his mouth about wanting Betsy Ross Nike’s today, the day Luis Alvarez was buried. Luis Alvarez spent the last weeks of his life trying to secure funding for 9/11 first responders. Mitch, try walking in Mr. Alvarez’ shoes. You don’t need Betsy Ross Nikes to be a patriot.
At the rate we are going, when the census takers come to my door, it won’t surprise me to see Proud Boys standing there. I urge everyone to refuse to answer the citizenship question should it appear. Donald won’t even be paying attention by then. He will be busy flying hither and yon, rallying, hoping to be re elected to run out the statute of limitations. In the meantime, I pray Tish James charges him with whatever crimes he has committed in NY. He has at least 40 years of criminal activity there so I remain optimistic.
28
Such humor--"quest to undermine the fairness and accuracy of the count". By doing what, finding out how many illegal immigrants are wondering the land--forcing those who should be deported, those not here legally, to reveal themselves?
Most important question the Cultural Marxist open-borders advocates don't want to answer: Why should taxpayer-money go to Congressional districts, cities, and states awash in illegal immigrants?
Have they, the Cultural Marxists, e.g., many NYT readers, it seems, not realized American Liberal Imperial stomping ended the day Trump took office? Is that where all the hate-Trump pain is really coming from? America has had enough of the stomping and wants its sovereignty and citizenship back?
8
@Alice's Restaurant
There are many legal immigrants who are not citizens but pay taxes and under the Constitution are required to be counted and represented. Posing the citizenship question does nothing to distinguish legal aliens from illegal aliens.
There are many households of mixed immigration status. This is about discouraging them from participating so that many citizens won't be counted. There is proof that Secretary Ross lied to Congress and the real reason they want to add the citizenship question is to advantage Republicans.
44
Alice’s Restaurant,
An accurate census is mandated by our Constitution. Asking the question is guaranteed to make it less accurate. This effect on accuracy is not a bug, it’s the welcome feature! The GOP’s intention is to intimidate immigrants, both legal and illegal, in order to imbalance how political power and financial resources are apportioned. The goal is to rob immigrants of political power. The GOP only cares about what’s written in our Constitution when it aligns with their political fortune.
11
@Alice's Restaurant
To answer your 'most important question': because those people pay taxes. All those municipalities, neighborhoods, states.
Each time you visit the supermarket, you are looking at produce & goods that are there -- for you -- because of the hard work of underpaid immigrant labor.
In fact, we deliberately perpetuate their "illegal" status because it means we can pay the willing desperate laborers, braceros, farm workers, home care aides, less for their work. Keeping prices down for us.
When Lincoln emancipated the slaves, American enterprises, especially in the vital Ag sector, still found a way to keep prices low: by relying on ultra-cheap labor, not from slaves this time, but from ultra-cheap 'illegal' farm workers.
That's the ugly reality that we are now finally facing up to. There's a history to these abuses.
Trumps became rich violating laws. Americans made a tycoon-turned-TV star, who is Putin's puppet, their Commander-in-Chief, even though all Americans knew he breaks laws, all laws, 24/7.
He rails against 'illegal' immigrants -- while employing them. While selling to them. Some who voted for Trump had family members deported!
The US economy cannot be 'purged' of every 'illegal' immigrant: those are the facts. Maybe we need another "Day without Mexicans" to make the point... This time, make it last a week.
You choose to live in San Diego? Study the history. Read about how the US annexed half of Mexico. There were people living on that land.
1
Trump has no interest in faithfully executing the duties of president, but in eliminating them. He wants to be answerable only to himself. The census could present him with a problem, and when Trump confronts a problem he seeks to "fix" it, meaning get around it through corrupt means. In this case, the census must be corrupted to fit Trump's needs, not the Constitution's mandates. That he is not being impeached is an indictment of the Republican Party, who are co-conspirators in this overthrow of the Constitutional order. Happy Independence Day, or the day of the Great Salute, take your pick.
21
A president is not above the law. Three branches of government were created for a reason and this is one.
14
I keep coming back to the fact that the republican leadership is supporting unabashedly white supremacy, international oligarchy influencing politics, turning governing into a spectacle, and what is around the corner is implementing technology and AI into surveillance and control. Democracy is down for the count if they keep the senate and the presidency in 2020.
25
The whole atmosphere of Trumpian and Republican corruption brings to mind a scene from Breaking Bad, where Jesse advises Walter to secure the services of a "criminal attorney," meaning an attorney who is a criminal. The toxic tidal wave that keeps coming at us from the Republicans must be countered by something of like force. Where is the Democratic Mitch McConnell? Who are the devious Dems who will insinuate prosocial agendas and work by any amoral means to defeat the other side? We will need our own crew of not-nice guys.
9
Prediction - the next census count will resemble the 2000 vote count in Florida.
9
This is a blatant attempt to intimidate those here without documentation. This administration knows states like California have many non citizens, scaring them into not answering the census will give an undercount of those living here and can cost a congressional seat and a loss of an electoral college vote, with the gain going to GOP state.
That is what it is, rigging the election, another example of GOP dishonesty and lack of ethics.
18
@David Underwood
So you are saying that illegal alliens are presently inflating the voting rolls! How else not being counted would result in the loss of a electoral seat? If they are here illegally why should their presence result in a electoral seat? It would be wrong, if so.
@Pat
Votes in the Electoral College are determined by the number of representatives a state has in Congress. The number of representatives a state has in congress is determined by how many people live in that state.
Under the Constitution, you are still entitled to representation in government if you live here, even if you are not allowed to vote for who that representative will be.
You should really try taking a basic 7th grade civics class, then you'd learn things like this.
1
Naive, thy name is the Editorial Board.
Trump habitually crosses boundaries of law and moral conduct and forces those affected to go to the mat to try to stop him.
Most, like jilted contractors and violated women, eventually give up. He counts on it.
With the malicious voices of Stephen Miller and Putin among others egging him on, Trump is now Trump unbounded.
When, not if, the citizenship question appears on the census, Trump et al. will come up with another phony excuse and dare the Supreme Court to order the question removed. Justice Roberts is likely to cave, like everyone else in DC including the Democratic leaders, military, agencies, etc..
The nation’s founders feared a king above all. They would despair at what Trump and his enablers are doing to create a dictatorship.
12
@Julie B
Actually, the founders were worried about protecting individuals / minorities against the "tyranny of the majority", and were deeply suspicious of the potential downsides of pure democracy.
4
Yet another opportunity to bend the election their way. I can guarantee you the Republicans are working with teams 24/7 in order to find any possible way to game the vote. Of course this is nothing new. I just wish I didn't feel as if our democracy was under attack- from within.
10
Why doesn’t this editorial comment on Trump’s plan to directly violate a Supreme Court ruling? He plans to add the citizenship question to the census, and no one in Commerce or Justice will stop him. He first elevated the Executive Branch over Congress with his wall funding, and now over the Federal Courts. He warned us, “Article II let’s me do whatever I want.” Trump is establishing one-man-rule, and the Times needs to react appropriately.
31
"...the Justice Department marched into court, saying they had been “instructed” by the president to seek a legal way to include the citizenship question..."
I think they were instructed that an illegal way would work as well.
4
The Illegitimate One does not want a complete and accurate census. He is making a power grab and has already succeeded whether or not the citizenship question is used.
By now, the man-baby who said "there are good people on both sides" has thoroughly intimidated millions of people in America so that huge numbers of minority voters (likely Democratic voters and mostly in blue states) will not be counted in 2020.
Each and ever day brings the US closer to the establishment of a right-wing dictatorship in America and nobody seems able or willing to stop it.
We may as well stop pretending that there will be a real election in 2020 -- we already know that there wasn't a legitimate election in 2016. No need for any more Democratic debates. No need to waste any more money on campaigning. The US now has a dictatorship. It's check mate on progressives and Democrats. Nothing short of a bloody civil war will make it otherwise. It's game over!
10
@NY Times Fan
If you really care about avoiding dictatorship, then join the founders, who sought a government whose primary purpose was the protection of the rights of individuals from harm by others and the government itself. Such a vision of a rights-securing state is not particularly interesting for dictators, for there would be little scope and money to allow arbitrary rule. The kind of government growth under Woodrow Wilson and FDR paved the way for the nightmare you're predicting, for they ushered in the idea that government should solve all the ills of life, and thus needs a lot of resources and officials to do so. That massive state infrastructure now has a life of its own, and interests of its own (including self-preservation), and can impose its will with violence. Now any would-be dictator has a juicy prize: a powerful machine to do his/her bidding. While I think in this instance you're misreading how far Trump wants to go, if you care about avoiding dictatorship and the like, then it behooves you to support dramatically reducing the scope of the federal government, and for any social programs that you care about to be implemented at the state and local level, which will keep in check any designs of grandeur of any dictator, for you can always move to a different city or state. For if expansive government programs and regulations are implemented federally, there is no way of escaping them, and thus dictators can run amok.
3
@NY Times Fan
I don't think it makes a lot of sense for the side who hates guns, hates masculinity, and gets the vapors about people saying mean things on twitter, facebook and youtube to talk about having a bloody civil war with the side who is armed to the teeth, insanely over represented in the police and military, and valorizes aggression of every kind.
The word "should", the idea of duty, and the obligation to obey the letter and the spirit of the law, aren't anywhere near what Trump and the GOP want to do. This is another close examination of a symptom. The disease is the seemingly countless faceless people executing these dark tasks and their relentless determination to destroy representative democracy.
When will this cease to surprise The Times?
4
Trump has essentially announced he will again do anything to rig, cheat, gerrymander, purge, suppress, flip, not count and otherwise discourage voting by groups traditionally leaning on the side of liberty and justice for all. He will continue to openly conspire with dictators and solicit their funding and hacking expertise to “win” at all costs.
Even if there is a landslide against him, he will refuse to leave.
8
Trump has decided that every function of government, including something as basic as the census should be directed to:
1. Aggrandizing himself
2. Securing his unrestricted power to enact his whims
3. Protecting him from any legal action, impeachment or censure.
4. Pandering to his sycophantic "base" to make sure they maintain the three actions above.
If this sounds like the desires of a banana republic, Asian or Russian dictator, BINGO! You've hit the nail on the head.
11
“Perhaps now officials could devote their energies to ensuring that this vital process isn’t undermined by incompetence or malicious interference.”
Problem is the administration in the executive branch and with the assistance of Fox News is incompetent, malicious and corrupt. They don’t even hide that they intend to rig the election process and cause chaos in immigrant communities.
Republicans directly specified they are targeting Hispanic communities in order to nationally gerrymander and deny representation to anyone not supporting their party.
If you care about our future republican voters I ask that you vote them out at every level. This is a direct assault against peaceful change of government through voting and representation.
5
The Republican apparatus isn't at all interested in a fair, accurate and/or secure census, they're interest in moving goal posts to achieve an illegitimate advantage for their diminishing demographic. They can't think of a possible question without posing more questions about their true motivation for desiring the inclusion of a new question. Kind of like a con man re-wording an easily discernible con in hopes you'll be more susceptible to the new con.
6
I doubt any undocumented people are going to complete the form regardless of the question being there or not.
3
The Trump administration has zero interest in an accurate, competently-executed census. Chaos, disinformation, and conspiracy theories serve its purposes better.
Serious people, serious newspapers can exhort them until doomsday. We're supposed to be dismayed. That's how Trump knows he's on to something that will benefit him.
4
Republicans don’t care about a fair and accurate census, anymore than they care about fair and accurate elections, or law and order, or the constitution, or the tenets of Christianity.
They care about enriching a small number of the party faithful at the expense of literally everyone else in the country, Democrat or Republican, extending to everyone beyond our boundaries. They aren’t patriots, nor are they populists or even nationalists. They are Trumpists.
4
First off, we currently are without a DOJ. With Barr in charge we have the trump defense team. Secondly, on the good governance issue alone trump needs to be ousted. With all departments starved for cash, I know...by design, and the woefully understaffed, low morale agencies we need to put responsible types back in charge. I pray these awful people have not fundamentally changed America and the damage can be salvaged.
This is all becoming exhausting, which is likely also by design.
6
When we say "weather news" or "sports news", what we mean is news about the weather or sports. I think it's time to apply the same syntax to "Fake News", so there is no ambiguity about the meaning. The common understanding of "Fake News" should be "news about a Fake (aka DT)".
This article portrays a perfect example of the Master's fakery in action. Coming up - The Fourth of July.
1
With the Trump administration, this potential for corruption is a feature, not a bug. They want to punish urban areas, known for elite "eggheads" and also for plenty of nonwhite people.
Red meat for the base; also good for the billionaires behind the GOP.
7
So tired of the constant chaos! Can't stand the thought of celebrating the 4th, there is nothing left to celebrate, just wish it would all go away.
3
@Maxine Epperson
You can't think of what to celebrate? Seriously? How about: relative peace, relative prosperity, so much food that even the poor are fat? How about the number of people toiling in physical labor is reduced, due to that prosperity? How about half the young men not being killed off in war? How about so much varied and quality entertainment available and time/opportunity for its consumption that it can be considered its own pathology? Compared to the year 1900, life spans have increased dramatically. Pick a random person from a hundred years ago and tell her how bad it is now, and I'd bet you that she'd trade places with you in a heartbeat. Yes, humans tend to adapt even to good things, always looking for the new shiny thing, making it feel almost impossible to feel genuine gratitude for what we already have. I'm constantly battling such feelings. But those feelings do not stand up to historical perspective. So whether I "feel" it or not, I _choose_ to be happy on this Independence Day, celebrating our personal freedoms from oppressive monarchs & rulers and all the prosperity our forebears have created.
3
@Immigrant
You apparently live in a different USA than I do:
Unending proxy wars conducted without Congressional approval; 1 in 5 children are hungry; real wages have not increased since 1974; the wealth disparities are more severe than ever before; majority of Americans live pay check to pay check and couldn't put out $400 for an emergency if needed; bankruptcy rates at record highs, most due to medical bills; definitely pathological addiction to entertainment and if that doesn't work there are opioids; life expectancy particularly for women in poor states such as Alabama are going down, life expectancies compare poorly to those in other developed countries; infant mortality rates the highest of the developed countries; the next generation drowning in debt to the point they are not having children; graduate programs in the sciences forced to hire from other countries as qualified American post-doctoral individuals are non-existent; potential employers unable to set up shop in depressed areas because there aren't enough qualified people and not enough people who could pass the drug tests; a denial of science at the highest level of government resulting in loss of USA leadership in the definitive global crisis of our time, climate disruption. So I dunno, wave that flag and party like it's 1999?
2
On the eve of our nation's birthday, our President is directing his people to disobey the law. Is there any doubt that he already thinks of himself as emperor?
Mrs. Pelosi ought to refresh her understanding of what the Founders intended, and get to work upholding her part of that vision and hold this megalomaniac accountable by launching impeachment hearings. Is it not crystal clear that he will never cooperate, nor willingly allow himself or any of his people testify? You can go to any court in the land as often as you wish, but he will stonewall until he's compelled to cooperate. The only way that will happen is via impeachment, if then.
Get rd of this stain on the memory and heritage of this great nation.
4
Geez. What a way to run the country. You take a non-partisan institution like the census and twist it to satisfy purely Republican, conservative redistricting goals.
If you’re successful, you’ve just riled up your opposition. As a liberal Democrat living in a strongly conservative congressional district, I know I can offset your attack on my party by just not responding to your Republican-skewed census. I do this to weaken my conservative district when redistricting comes (try to find me if you can - maybe I moved). I’m sure some of my local liberal friends will do the same.
Hurray for America on this day of celebration of a nation of people who for at least a while aspired (albeit imperfectly) to be equals under God and under the Law. Trump and his minority of voters have proven that a lot of us count a lot less as Americans than others.
4
@A Citizen
Yes, non-citizens count less as Americans than citizens. Citizens are equal, which is why we need to know how many there are.
3
@Immigrant
You don’t get it. This issue is not about citizens vs non-citizens. It’s about a concept called gerrymandering and making Republican votes count for more than Democrat votes. The intent of the Republicans in adding this question was to obtain data from the census to better manipulate district boundries so they could continue to control the government even when Democrats get more votes in aggregate. When asked about the reason, they lied. John Roberts (of all people) saw right through this deception and swung the SCOTUS vote against the administration.
Republicans want to rig the system to make my vote to count less than theirs and I am going to do whatever I can to prevent it.
1
A good count is not good for the Republican government.
So forget about it ever happening. Perhaps the NYTimes could stand in the mirror and as they are counting the revenue generated by their NON STOP above the fold coverage of Hillary's emails ponder if they had any roll in bringing Heir Trump to power.
5
It will be interesting to see if the “new” rationale for the citizenship question is “Because I want it!”
2
It's just basic common sense to ask whether or not someone is a citizen or not. We know that the democrat candidates wish to abolish all illegality regarding people who just walk across the southern border, which sounds very much like a step in erasing the very idea of citizenship. So this question, a basic question that normal people would ask concerning someone's citizenship, becomes just a political action in order to advance their goal of a permanent underclass of voters. Next is what -- abolishing all questioning at airport entries? Giving people illegally here the right to vote? Democrats are a menace to our society. They will do anything in their pursuit of power.
6
@Len
To the contrary! It's basic common sense that the citizenship question does nothing to distinguish legal permanent residents from illegal aliens. Republicans want to cause millions of citizens from being counted. They will do anything in pursuit of power.
6
The census is criticized for trying to ask the citizenship questions but it is normal to ask where our ancestors are coming from: white, African, Hispanic, Asian, or native American. Does anybody else anything wrong with this picture?
6
@Roy
Excellent point. The real question is justifying why the citizenship question is NOT on.
3
The essential point of the census is counting & tracking the total population in the various political jurisdictions. The number of eligible voters, registered voters, children not qualified to vote, etc. are important for all manner of civic functions (public education system, transportation planning, law enforcement, etc.)as are the totals for recent relocations, ineligible/inactive voters, non-registered citizens & disqualified individuals. The voter registration lists are maintained by the local commissions set up to ensure the orderly functioning of our democracy, separate from the census. Local, State & Federal legislative districts are structured based on basic total population. A resident's age, voter registration, participation in elections or citizenship status are not relevant for the purposes of the census. They all count as part of the population.
2
OK I give up. I will vote for whoever else the Democrats nominate. Even Bernie the socialist. I don't care. Just stop this craziness now. I can't take it anymore.
8
If the media hadn't framed Trump's initial decision to drop the citizenship question for the 2020 census as a defeat for him, he would have let it go.
I think the worst insult Trump can imagine is to be characterized as a loser in any way because it hits to close to home.
7
Trump should be making sure the USA 2020 election is not rigged by Russian, North Korean, China or Saudia Arabia.
Instead he distracts from the facts like always.
Wish I had a democratically elected president, not a TV reality show joke.
Democrat for president, House, Senate and governors.
Take back America. I would love to have Eisenhower in charge. Or even Abraham Lincoln with some updates.
4
@Eric Peterson
Sorry to break it to you, but Trump did get the votes to win the election. There was an interesting map showing shifts in voting patterns, and all the forgotten rural places that Trump campaigned in but Clinton did not, shifted strikingly Trump. These people actually did vote for him (after voting Obama before) and those differences were enough to tip the scales. You'd have to maintain that they were brainwashed, and I dare you to tell them that to their faces. The fact is, they know their interests better than you (or I) do, which is why we each get our own vote.
3
@Immigrant Do they? How is that working out in West Virginia? Has Trump brought coal back yet and revitalized the region like he said he would? How's it working out for soybean farmers in the Midwest? Has the destruction of their entire industry "Made America Great Again" for them?
Whether I get a chance to say it to their faces or not is irrelevant, because it is an objective fact that these people were lied to, manipulated, and duped. If they are too proud or ashamed or stubborn to admit that, that is their choice, but it does not change the objective facts, and no matter how many commenters you whine at, you can't change them either.
1
He isn't trying to rig the census. If the liberal side plus one of the Supreme Court had ruled unicorns can't vote republican he would have fought it. He is fighting against the "dark powers" that be, which is exactly what his base wants. The worse the odds, the better he looks to his base. The more judges that rule against him, the better he looks to his base. The more editorials written saying he is against everything, the better he looks to his base. Please NYT, call it for what it is before you get him re-elected.
1
BTW Trump reversed himself this morning in a tweet and now says he *will* fight for the census question. Will he or won't he? Donald Trump - we may as well have Donald Duck as president.
4
At approx. 5:45p EDT, July 3, I am seeing reports that the Trump administration has not yet capitulated on this issue.
This can still get very ugly. Perhaps we will shortly see if Trump and his rabid Republican enablers already own the Judicial branch to the extent that they can pull off something like this.
Interesting times----not in a good way.
4
this speaks to gross incompetence and autocratic rule:
*The Supreme Court rules against including the question
*Justice and Commerce publicly and in writing state that the question will NOT be included in 2020
*Trump says no and says the question will be included, go back to court (or something) or do it anyway
*The constitution mandates a census every 10 years and this is scheduled to begin April 1, 2020. With the mammoth task and problems to resolve, Trump is doing what he wants no matter what the Supreme Court or the Constitution say.
1
@ls
Please be accurate: the Supreme Court didn't accept the justification provided for the citizenship question, not the question itself. Your use of the term "autocratic" suggests that to pursue adding the question is somehow in open defiance of the court, but it is not. Sure, the PR has been bungled, what else is new?
1
Knock it off already with the citizenship questions. The mission of the census is to count people. So limit the job to that - count people. Maybe break it down by gender and age but that is it. Anything else is intrusive and goes beyond what we expect from the census.
4
Accurate and Secure? Not if he can help it. The 2016 election wasn't, and he won that. Chaos is his brand. He wants to be able to challenge the census afterward, and is taking every chance to muck it up so he can later claim "Fake Census"!
"Predictable, that's the word of the year."
5
If the citizenship question is included it will render the census invalid because it won't be a true count of people living in the USA. Of course they (the GOP) know this - but winning an election is apparently more important than accurate reliable statistics...but dodgy information is standard output in this Administration which should be a surprise to no one.
4
@Tom
We should want to know how many citizens there are.
Trump knows Pelosi is paralyzed with fear over losing the so called swing districts won last year and will never act against him.
Since Congress is the only body that can check a sitting president and since Pelosi is effectively neutered on acting as that check, Trump knows he is home free on anything he wants to do.
It was probably better to have Republicans in charge of Congress since Trump, in the interests of intra party comity, would not stonewall a GOP controlled Congress to the extent he can stonewall a Democratic one.
All this talk of old Joe Biden being out of touch. At least HE has an understanding of the threat Trump poses to the country.
Funny how progressives think Biden is too old but that Pelosi is a sharp, savvy, incisive political strategist when clearly, it is time for her to go spend time with the grand kids.
And, just in case progressives are still on that "you need 2/3rds" kick:
impeachment is to INFORM, not to REMOVE.
1
Only one question is necessary for the U.S. Census to take a population count to determine congressional apportionment: How many people live at this address. Why is it okay to ask age, race, etc., but not citizenship status?
4
This is reminiscent of Andrew Jackson's famous "The Supreme Court has made its ruling; now let's see them enforce it."
If Trump can pull off a Jackson, rest assured he will. He has no regard for the country's institutions or laws or the oath of office he has taken.
4
@Jim Hugenschmidt North Carolina is set to lose another House seat and Electoral vote after 2020.
How do you feel about losing your power, influence and federal funding to CA, AZ and TX because they have millions upon millions of illegal immigrants and you have a modest #?
You're being fleeced and you're blaming who? Yourself?
Trump is part of an ongoing Republican strategic effort to undo our democracy and fix elections any way they can. The GOP leadership was delighted to have Russian help and will stop at nothing to stay in power. We are facing a descent into a one-party dictatorship with Trump as the poster boy for Republican contempt for our nation. The only hope is a backlash of voters who want to restore decency to our country.
15
@Jefflz And where is the Democratic leadership right now? Why do they always cave in to the Republicans ?Nancy should be fired, Chuck too. Let us have some real leaders for the Democrats. You can bet Chuck and Nancy will bow low and say " more please". Let us have the kind of leaders who will fight back and defend the constitution and will fight for us, not big donors or oligarchs.
3
So, the federal government is unable to ensure an accurate count? What a great way for the GOP or Russia to meddle. We may never know if the census was right.
4
I am happy to mark on the census form that I’m a non citizen from Mars. I trust there will be a revolt and people will mark their forms as being non citizens. That will spice things up for sure.
9
Counting illegals in the census without knowing their status may not give them individual voting rights, but it does give them voting power, for the President, through their representatives.
Census data are used to determine the number of congressional districts in a state, which translate to electoral votes. Counting illegals in the census gives states with a lot of them an unjustifiable number of representatives.
Section 2 of the 14th amendment implies that the right to vote can be denied to people, and the number of representatives of that state can be adjusted accordingly.
Indicating whether they are citizens doesn't mean they can't be counted, they just won't have voting weight. The proportion of illegals in some states is a lot higher than others (exceptional examples: CA & NY). Counting them in these states skews the count in favor of Dem's, and they know it.
13
@Raz
You forget Texas and Florida and other red states with migrants populations that are along the border.
You also seem to not care that this is about voter suppression directed at denying non-republicans representation through gerrymandering districts on a national level with high tech software. It is also directed at the Hispanic community on paper and with ICE to invoke fear of the government and keep Hispanic citizens from voting.
You also don't mention the unfair advantage of states that have a population of a million people yet have outsized representation. You also admit you are biased and targeting liberals. Do you even care about the above?
What about the electoral college that favors small states again.
How about a bipartisan solution. For every 2 million citizens a state adds 1 senator. States with less than 1 million will only have 1 senator. Then we can count citizens with a survey, not the census, which must be apolitical to count the whole population out of respect to everyone.
One thing is true. In the end the republicans have far more representation in this system period. Do you actually care about people being represented or not? Because from where I am sitting you don't want liberals to have a voice in our democracy. Prove me wrong by supporting more senators for higher populations.
6
@Raz You’re argument ignores the constitutional mandate to count EVERY person living in the United States. It’s the bedrock of your party to adhere to the constitution - Or was until the Republican party corrupted itself with its win at all costs abdication of morality. Your approach is to guarantee an undercount as well of US CITIZENS of color. So no desire or stomach for the truth? Not really - you know the citizenship question is a power grab - goes back to the win no matter the cost to our come nary approach. Now not even truth can penetrate your mindset.
3
@Raz This is the way congressional districts are set. How is it unjustified?
To Trump and his Republican helpers if something helps him win it's good and should be encouraged. If it might cost him votes, it's bad and should be discouraged. That is all that matters to this man and his followers : winning. So he will do very little to get the census count correct; quite the contrary, he will try to limit Democratic votes by fair means or foul. Ask that question, which terrifies new Americans who harbor an "illegal". He will do whatever he can---law or no law--to get that frightening question into the census so as to limit representation from those areas where such a question is truly frightening. And to cut their funding. Are they not sympathetic to the enemy--the Democrats?
He will do nothing to discourage Russian interference in elections; quite the contrary, he will accept whatever help can be hidden . Only winning counts. Very important to him is to use gerrymandering distortions to limit his opponents' voting power. He applauds the easy money overflowing in [thank you, citizens' united] in such abundance, giving him a chance to flood the media with his lies. Not laws, not fairness , not a level playing field ---but quite the contrary.
5
The Editorial Board's assertion that counting the number of American citizens would be "rigging the census" would be comical if it were so repugnant.
The Constitution excluded millions of residents (slaves and most Native Americans were excluded because most were not citizen. from the census count Ibecasiue they were not citizens.Most Native Americans were not counted until the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 made them citizens. The Census Act included only "free persons" who had resided under the jurisdiction of the United States for at least two years. The term "under the jurisdiction of" means citizens. What else could it mean?
The Supreme Court agreed that “the Enumeration Clause permits Congress, and by extension the Secretary, to inquire about citizenship on the census questionnaire.” This settles the most crucial issue. The constitutionality of asking the citizenship question is no longer an issue; it is constitutional.
As Judge Neil Gorsuch pointed out during oral arguments, the census has asked the citizenship more often than not. It was asked on the short form from 1870 though 1950. It was asked on the long from from 1950 through 2000. (The long form was discontinued when the Census Bureau began conducting thr annual Americans Community Survey in 2005.)
9
@William Case Worse news for the Democrats. Polling released today shows 80% of Americans approve of this question on the census in 2020.
Hmm..... I wonder what happens when one political party ignores the will of the vast majority of the country?
2
@William Case
1. With the exception of diplomats who are granted immunity from criminal prosecution, every foreign national in the United States is "under its jurisdiction" and subject to its laws. That is true whether they are present as immigrants or non-immigrants, and whether they have or have not taken necessary steps towards obtaining citizenship (applying for or obtaining "legal permanent resident" status).
2. The enumeration clause was the Constitution's back-handed and shameful way of dealing with slavery without ever making an assertion about whether African-Americans were eligible for citizenship or not: in five of the thirteen original states, they were accorded the rights of citizens (including the right to vote); in the other eight, they were not. Yet even in those states where they were denied voting and other civil and political rights, the enumeration clause required that they be counted (and then treated as three-fifths of a person for purposes of legislative apportionment and proportional taxation).
3. Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment abolished most of the original Enumeration clause. It specifically provides: "Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed."
2
@RetiredLawProf
The Supreme Court has never made a definite ruling on the constitutional meaning of the term “under the jurisdiction,” but under he jurisdiction, but it obviously applies only to citizens.
For example, the 14th Amendment says “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” If the term “under the jurisdiction” simply meant anyone who could be prosecuted under U.S. civil or criminal law would be a citizens. For example, the the person bit being held in Customs and Border Protection detention facilities would be citizens. So would any tourist who enters the country on a travel visa.
1
An article in Slate portrayed the DOJ attorneys as looking utterly sheepish before Judge Hazel, no reason for the turnabout other than they were told to take back their statements assuring the judge that there would be no citizenship question - because of Trumps tweets. The Court will not take kindly to being jerked around -- but in the mean time Trump manages to level blows at the Census Bureau.
What I am not clear about is whether funding for the Census Bureau has been cut in the last two years, which would be another blow.
This is an area - similar to others involving Trump's arrogance - - where he can undermine confidence and actually help insure that the process is impeded to such an extent that it will not be able to conduct a" good enough" and reliable Census. What terrible luck to have him as President in a Census period. But - everyone enjoy those tanks tomorrow!
He is destroying the government in bits and pieces, while channeling his inner Mussolini.
People focusing on the question of citizenship: in many ways that is the least of the problems at this time. The relentless publicity as stirred up by Trump creates fear and suspicion. The agency itself has been hamstrung in efforts to complete a major change. Most Presidents, I'd like to believe, on either side of the spectrum and in between, actually want a reliable Census count. He would relish having a failure he would blame on liberals and " dark government"
6
@cheryl
He is the executive branch. That is the irony at this point. He and his cronies are the establishment and many have been part of it for decades.
1
It seems the Republicans feel that they are not bound by any laws. any court decisions, any norms or traditions, anything ethical or decent. If they want it, they just take it.
America, you're in deep trouble.
15
There is nothing these people won't do for political advantage. The Republican Party has turned into a RICO Act covered organization for all intents and purposes.
13
@Bill I totally agree there is nothing these people in the Democrat Party won't do for political advantage, including pushing open border policies with free health insurance leading up to the 2020 census to shove as many illegals into CA as possible before apportionment is done over after the 2020 census.
You think this is REpublicans taking advantage of something?
You doth protest too much.
If the President doesn't care about the accuracy of the census, why should I? Why shouldn't I invent things and make up answers, move to a city and claim five people live in my apartment instead of one? The census is unrelated to whether people can vote or not, but it has been used in the past to round up and incarcerate Americans. So why should I cooperate with something that WILL be used against me?
4
I'm wondering if. as part of this decision to defy the law, Trump will have his people insert language that counts Russian citizens as part of the count? After all, he might as well get their participation officially recorded, right?
2
@Kingfish52 If those Russian citizens are also American citizens (as my daughter is), why wouldn't you allow them to vote?
If the citizenship question makes on to the census form, any reason why one can just choose not to answer that question?
1
@Lester Baer There are significant fines for doing so.
Nevertheless - the census is not about voting.
1
@Maggie
There are potential fines. In the past it has been uncommon for them to fine. They will probably simply try and contact you for more information.
I don't believe the citizenship question will have to be answered. Often times questions are left blank. So if everyone left it off in mass which is legitimate they would have to spend a lot of money and time trying to contact people. At which point you can simply decline to tell them based on privacy.
The government is supposed to protect and serve US. Not the other way around.
2
@Mathias That is good to know.
I don't understand why the plaintiff's attorneys are not asking for an emergency order from the Judges in Maryland and New York, ordering the printers not to print any Census Forms containing a citizenship question.
Hard to see how the DOJ could argue against such an order, given their representations that the printing has begun without the citizenship question.
4
@rubin It wouldn't take much (ball bearings between the presses) to send those presses/printers into a 4 week repair cycle..buying the White House some time. It's not as though these are being printed by a local sheetfed printer.
There are all kinds of questions on the census and many folks are concerned with why we should not include the citizenship question. These concerns should not be dismissed. The reason it should not be included is that that inclusion of the question diminishes the accuracy of the 2020 count. This is what history and mathematics tell us. You may not understand the math, but it's not up for debate. Virtually every professional in the field agrees. So including the question is counterproductive if our goal is to accurately count the population. That's all.
If you're still having trouble with this, imagine we added the following question: "How many guns does your household possess?" Like I said, all kinds of questions are on the census and there are reasonable arguments for including such a question. Now, while there is no history to draw from, I will go out on a limb and conjecture that this would also diminish the accuracy of the count. For that reason we should also be opposed to the addition of that question. The bottom line is that the census is important for our democracy and we as citizens should demand a procedure that leads to a count that is as accurate as we can manage.
20
@Adam. Best comment. Clear and convincing. It really stands out in the middle of all the hysteria.
1
@Adam Your operate words?
We as citizens.
nuff said.
You proved our point.
Thanks for being honest.
to tell the truth, we really don't know what race we are, or exactly how old---so we cannot actually answer these census questions for sure.
Furthermore, we are not sure of our marital status any more (there have been so many...), and with the ups and downs of the stock market and housing costs, we couldn't really report truthfully income or personal worth.
Furthermore/more, we really can't remember every little course, college, or degree that happened so long ago. We are keeping a pile of lira and francs in case we need to move to Canada, which could affect our citizenship status...non? Gosh, what is happening in the USA these days makes us question whether we are even living here. We thought we were part of a nation of balanced federal powers and laws---perhaps we are citizens of an nation that has ceased to exist.
We sincerely hope the census form has only 1 or at most 2 difficult questions.
6
Does anyone else wonder how else the census might be manipulated?
2
President Trump has so many faults, shortcomings, vices, and criminal proclivities, that deciding what is the primary motivation for a specific act may be a fool's errand.
But I think that making a decision on a whim isn't just his nature, but it may sometimes be deliberate, that is, just to keep everyone else in a state of anxiety, or suspense.
It also keeps him in the headlines, even more than is already so. His need for attention is ravenous.
9
By no stretch of the imagination am I in Trump's camp, but how can you call a census that doesn't count the citizens 'accurate'?
5
@JAS3rd According to the Constitution, the purpose of the census is to count the number of persons in the country. Seats in Congress are proportioned according to the number of persons, not citizens. There are other ways to account for the number of citizens.
21
@L and R Thompson
That sounds wrong to me. Why would a district have more representatives if they have more non citizens? A non citizen has no voting rights why then should they influence policy by having representation?
2
@Pat Because they still live here and pay taxes here and are effected by what those representatives do. If that's not good enough for you, then what about: Because it's literally written into the Constitution.
If you don't like it, try to get the states to ratify an amendment changing the language.
2
Trump apparently believes that he can go round up people who indicate on the census forms that they are not citizens. Someone should tell him census responses are confidential, revealed only decades in the future. I doubt he grasps what it means to depress the count -- something Republicans would want, of course. And Republicans can use the information to draw district maps to shut out Democrats and other voters. But I doubt Trump gets that or cares, since it benefits other Republicans, not him personally.
9
@Hornbeam
Durign World War II, the census forms were used to identify and lock up Japanese-Americans on the West Coast. No one should be blamed for not trusting the confidentiality of census forms.
22
@Hornbeam
What benefits Republicans does benefit Trump, because it's Republicans that are blocking his removal from office and it's Republicans that will reelect him in 2020. He will do almost anything to keep the loyalty of Republican voters (now over 90% despite his illegitimate "election" and his constant high crimes and misdemeanors -- they're happening so fast the Democrats can't keep track of them all much less take any action against him.)
Do you think Trump really cares if someone tells him that census responses are confidential? PLEASE!!! He's ignoring all norms. He's ignoring laws. He's ignoring the Supreme Court. He's ignoring the US Constitution. If anybody tells him anything he doesn't like he simply fires them and ridicules them.
There is a tyrant now running the nation. Nobody tells him anything. Nobody!
1
I’m terrified of what is happening. If a Supreme Court decision doesn’t have to be followed and Congress doesn’t intervene on its behalf - what is left of our democracy. What happens from here?
166
@Hilty St Denis Umm..you might actually want to read that Supreme Court opinion.
They said the WH can include the question, but the rational they used did not follow Administrative Law.
Hence the chance to revisit the challenge by the White House, which they are doing...as the law allows.
3
@Erica Smythe
But Ross said that the reason was “solely” to uphold the Voting Rights Act and that was spectacularly proven to be false. It’s hard to go back and present another argument when you’ve already had your “sole” argument so roundly refuted.
15
"Sixty-seven percent of voters said the census should be able to ask whether people living in the U.S. are citizens, going against the recent Supreme Court decision on the matter, according to a new Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll.
"The poll also found that the inclusion of the question was supported among members of both parties, with 88 percent of Republicans and 52 percent of Democrats supporting its inclusion."
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/451398-poll-majority-say-the-census-should-be-able-to-include-citizenship
Although most many NYT commentators clearly disagree, the poll suggests that most voters in the center and right do not want to reward "sanctuary states" with an increase in representation in the House.
9
But the Supreme Court said not. And that ends the matter.
An authoritarian populist country is run by a purported contract between a Strongman and the people.
A Constitutional Democracy is run by the checks balances of a written Constitution and elected representatives.
We are not a Authoritarian Populist country, like Russia, or Turkey, or North Korea, etc.
We are a Constitutional Democracy.
It is astounding how little that is remembered and understood in these troubling days.
67
@Robert Orban because on the surface it seems reasonable. Most people have no idea how this impacts anything. The republicans promoting this question know it will work in their favor. That is their only motivation.
13
@Paul McGlasson
Actually, we are a Constitutional Republic. Big difference.
Mr. Trump insists on ignoring the constitution and rule of law. To be fair, it's still not clear if he is compromised by one or more foreign adversaries.
35
@M Do explain what part of the Constitution he has ignored. And to be clear, there is no collusion. It’s time for liberals to explain their outrageous accusations instead of hiding behind the letter M.
2
@Jackson Did you read the Mueller report? I did. No where does it say there was no collusion.
4
@Jackson The part of the Constitution that says the census shall count "all persons" living within the jurisdictional boundaries of the United States, to "all citizens".
It's in Article I, Section 2, if you want to try actually reading it.
Also, did you miss the bit where Mueller's report declared that "If we concluded that he was not guilty, we would say so". The only reason they didn't indict him was because he told them they were not allowed to, and they have this crazy thing called integrity, so they didn't just do it anyway.
Another fact that is often lost in the shuffle. Many American households and families are mixed; that is, they include both U.S. citizens and non-citizens. To the extent Trump's question results in an undercount of those households, many (perhaps millions) of American citizens will not be counted. This aspect of the issue deserves more attention.
15
Were such undercounts a concern when Democrat presidents included the citizenship question?
1
The Times should have mentioned that conducting the census on line will exclude many people who don't have easy online access and will therefore not be counted. We don't know how many. It could easily be millions. We don't know where they are, except that many will be in rural areas with low Internet penetration and many will be poor people.
25
@Thomas Zaslavsky
add old, and white, and you've got me. Where do I sign?
1
The census presents a once in a decade opportunity to solidify a permanent Republican hold on political power at both the state & federal level. Despite a Supreme Court decision blocking the Republican attempt to discourage full participation in the census, it is inconceivable that Trump will acquiesce to the loss of such a powerful, potentially decisive weapon. Under-counting the population in cities, particularly in the less prosperous areas, guarantees Republicans an irreversible political advantage. This invisible undercount will magnify the power of the gerrymandering that the Supreme Court has just ratified as another permanent anti-democratic constant in American electoral politics. Taking into account the added effect of the decision by the Roberts court eviscerating the Voting Rights Act of 1964 (?), the systematic destruction of American democracy is plain to see. The inclusion of a citizenship question in the 2020 census will have the cumulative effect of closing off any attempt to reverse the advance of authoritarian government through the ballot box. The President's contempt for democracy and lust for dictatorial power will not be denied. There will be no census unless or until the Republicans get the citizenship question included on the short form questionnaire. This is likely the decisive moment in the survival of our democracy. After this, substantial return to democracy may well have to come by non-democratic means!
46
@mike4vfr
Brilliantly stated! And I agree with absolutely everything you wrote here. It's game over for progressives and Democrats. It's game over for democracy. It's game over for the America we once thought we knew.
It was always a rigged game to begin with in favor of red states and Republicans starting with the Found Fathers and their corrupt compromise over slavery. But until now no Republican took maximal advantage of the rigged system. Now someone has and it's obviously game over!
3
Giving inaccurate responses to the census is illegal, but if the question is illegal can I ignore it?
13
Rig the census? If you're too scared to answer yes or no to "are you a citizen or lawful resident" then you might not be a citizen or lawful resident and thus, you should not be counted period. Instead, you should be removed from this country until such a time as you are able to answer yes.
This is not mean or anything other than sensible. How does our census query stack up against other nations? They ask.
8
@Brian in FL Except that the wording of the U.S. Constitution states that an "actual enumeration" will take place - counting all residents. The Constitution does not state that only citizens shall be counted. Since conservatives often want us to apply the Constitution as it is written, then it looks like you'll have to accept that all people residing in the U.S. get counted in the Census. Sorry not sorry.
79
@Brian in FL
Perhaps if the Republicans hadn't engaged so so many efforts to suppress the vote, take away reproductive rights, enrich the already affluent, deny science and scientific inquiry, take away health care--and lie about their true motives while doing all of these things and more--there would not be such concern about the census issue. Even a packed Supreme Court didn't buy the lame justification offered. The constitution only calls for "enumeration" of persons in the country. We have other means of estimating the number of refugees and other non-citizens. It will damage the census if we use it to count non-citizens. The GOP's motive for including a citizenship question serves the interests of their party, not the country as a whole.
33
@Brian in FL census is to enumerate all persons. If the citizenship question thwarts that than it should not be used. It’s says nothing about citizens etc.
17
From everything I’ve been reading about the sanctity and importance of an accurate census count to make the United States function the way it’s supposed to it would seem then to be a solemn honor for all of us who love and respect our country to answer and return it. Maybe anyone here not willing to share in that maybe not ought to be here either. Who are they really doing the favor of their presence for otherwise?
4
@John Doe, My family's ancestry can be traced back to the early 1700s in this country, however I and my family have no intention to complete any census nor answer any census official that arrives on our doorstep. It is called "privacy". The government has no business knowing about us other than that we pay our taxes. The government continues to erode our privacy at every turn and we will not assist in their efforts.
1
I took part in the 2000 Census. At that time I lived on the foothills of California. I canvassed the houses, but I was amazed at the number of people who told me to get off of their property, and that they weren't going to provide information to the government. I then had to fill out the information accordingly. There are a number of people, for whatever their reason, don't want the government to intrude into their lives.
9
@Dan O
Don't you wonder if they ever did anything far more intrusive, such as file income taxes? Or have and use Social Security Numbers - for work or for collecting benefits, etc, or if they have birth certificates for their children or themselves? Do they vote? It is so unlikely that they live entirely off the grid.
4
@cheryl The houses in the foothills mostly have acreage which is why people move to the foothills, to get away from people. Most of the people in the foothills are white, so you automatically think legal. While most everyone I spoke to didn't mind the census, but a few definitely didn't want you, or the government, asking questions. I'm just saying that it's not just illegals that don't fill out the census questionnaire.
1
This isn't some optional or fungible activity for political partisans to play with as they please.
The US Census is a critical obligation of the federal government explicitly spelled out in the Constitution.
It's America's selfie that says who we are, not who we want or imagine ourselves to be.
Socrates took "Know Thyself" from the inscription at the Temple of Delphi and posited that it as "the beginning of wisdom".
For America the census is how we know ourselves. It's also the beginning -- or end -- of democracy.
Some big foundation with billions of tax avoided dollars should fund a national citizens commission -- co-chaired by the three former US Presidents -- and involving demographers, economists, political scientists, historians, urban planners, health experts of high professional standing to monitor and oversee the 2020 census as an objective inventory of America.
Or maybe all those 2016 House Democrats can stop posturing for a minute and consider vigilant oversight of GOP efforts to rig the census.
17
@Yuri Asian. There are four living former US presidents, not three.
Of course it is appropriate for the census to count all residents. It is also appropriate to learn how many are citizens and how many are not.
The only people who fear a census question on citizenship are illegal immigrants and politicians who want their votes.
15
@Mon Ray If you want to know how many residents there are then citizenship is not an issue.
By asking a citizenship question you bias the response of residents, defeating your initial objective.
By analogy it is like asking the question "Do you have a legal permit to carry a gun?" and counting only those who actually respond to the question as representative of "the population of gun owners".
11
@Mon Ray, "Appropriateness" is irrelevant as the conservative members of SCOPUS tell us. They repeatedly explains that what counts is what is written in the Constitution, which clearly states persons- NOT citizens or residents. If this troubles you then you ought to move to amend the Constitution.
1
I should inform you that you need to be a citizen to vote so no undocumented immigrants vote. The constitution says the people will be counted not citizens. No person who is not a citizen will fill out the census so you will not get an accurate count
Reading the comments in your faux "news" article, "2020 Census Won’t Have Citizenship Question as Trump Administration Drops Effort," many were indifferent to whether the question was added or not.
Many said:
- The damage is already done. The citizenship question doesn't matter.
- The SC gerrymandering decision was worse. The citizenship question doesn't matter.
- Trump will find a way to rig the census. The citizenship question doesn't matter.
- We don't trust the government enough to respond to the census. The citizenship question doesn't matter.
- Trump is a (fill in your favorite expletives). The citizenship question doesn't matter.
So why are you now saying the citizenship question matters?
I need a neck brace from this whiplash.
8
Aside from the question whether the reasons behind asking about citizenship are political, one would ordinarily think such a question is a normal and legitimate one, and it has been widely reported that many other countries ask that question in their census questionnaires. The political agenda is not irrelevant, but should not have driven the SCOTUS decision. Once more, it looks like Roberts put his thumb on the scale, supporting the left-wing Gang of Four, so that the Court would not look overtly political. Nice try, but not believable.
8
@Working Stiff: "The other guys do it" is never a good reason for the US to do anything. The census is supposed to count everyone possible, including prisoners, indigents, transients, etc., and it affects funding. Nationality has nothing to do with this effort. I, for one, will refuse to answer this sort of question.
10
Many times things are not as they appear to be. This census question is definitely what it appears to be. It is a way for the GOP to discount millions of voters who lean left in their voting. Between gerrymandering and this census question, the GOP plans on staying in power indefinitely.
35
Huh? if they're not citizens they won't be voting.
2
@NOTATE REDMOND A right wing and moneyed coup d'etat that is nearly complete...
This whole case shows the absurdity that the SCOTUS has become. The court found the reason, which the administration gave for wanting the question added, to be nonsense. Yet, the court offered an opening for the White House to come up with another reason? It sounds like the stuff of sit-coms. The administration gave its reason. It was ridiculous. Period. Any new "reason" would have to be, by default, not THE real reason (we already heard their version of that though it is now clear that the real reason was purely political all along). It appears that this court is so in Trump's pocket that they will offer him second chances to try to get it right - or at least somewhat reasonable.
94
@Anne-Marie Hislop
Meanwhile, back on Earth, Justice Ginsburg sounds positively ecastatic about her new part-time political partner Justice Kavanaugh.
@editorialboard - The second sentence of your article has to be the most wobbliest ever: "No matter that the Supreme Court ruling that compelled their retreat objected not to the administration’s quest to undermine the fairness and accuracy of the count, but to its failure to present, if not an honest, at least a non-preposterous rationale."
Just say - "Mr. Trump thinks he is above the law." That sums up everything in a nutshell. Rather than making the reader suffer through so many clauses and subject-object interpretations too difficult for the common reader to interpret.
37
The question of whether you are or are not a U.S. citizen has always seemed like a very reasonable question to me and I generally favor expanded legal immigration. However, LEGAL immigration will never be liberalized as long as our country fails to contain ILLEGAL immigration.
14
@Thomas Smith. But Legal immigrants, working toward citizenship, will not be counted. The question will not ask if you are if you are legal or illegal, just if you are a citizen.
Even if there is no question about citizenship on the census, there may still be very likely an undercount of immigrants, because of the terror that the Trump administration has struck in the minds of very many immigrants, such that they will dread giving any information about themselves whatsoever on a document from the government. That is the pernicious effect that Donald Trump has had on our society, from the very first hour he was elected.
23
@Mark Caponigro I don't understand, why would any legal immigrant dread giving information about themselves? Is there supposed to be absolutely no distinction between legal and illegal immigration to this country?
6
@Elahe of course there is. look at the situation with the detention camps. Many of them came here legally, waiting for asylum. They are being held for far longer than the law allows, under inhumane conditions. (some) of the border patrol and ICE agents are acting like brown shirts. In some cases (probably many) there is a backlog of red tape that needs to be processed. Some children here are legal residents, maybe one parent is, and the other isn't. What would you do? I only gave 1 example, but there are many. My head is going to explode...
8
@Elahe You miss the point. How does an illegal immigrant answer the question?
They don't answer at all. And are thereby eliminated from the census entirely.
That amounts to an undercount of around 3% of the population of the US or some 13+ million people.
Think of the consequences of planning that uses that undercount for something like vaccine production in a flu epidemic.
7
Trump and his administration are not interested in using their "energies to make sure the census is accurate and secure."
Trump and the GOP do not want the census accurate and secure. They want chaos and confusion and threats. Create enough turmoil and people will not answer the census forms. Especially Latinos and immigrant communities. This has been their plan all along. Undercounting marginal communities will give the GOP an advantage. That's what the whole "citizenship" question was devised to bring about.
This reversal is all about continuing to foster chaos and confusion. And the great horror is that it will probably succeed. Who is going to stop them?
37
Incredible that the supposed most technological advanced country in the world cannot guarantee an accurate census and cannot conduct accurate elections. Nor, can this country has a means who is eligible to vote. Even worse, this country has no idea who is a citizen and who is not.
Considering the IRS and Social Security Administration seems to be able to figure it out.
I personally do not like the citizenship question, because it is being asked for political reasons. The GOP is on record to use it for partisan gerrymandering. The president is using it to round up people and place them "detention centers". And, GOP leaning states, want to use this information to partisan gerrymander state districts.
It is for these reasons why this country has a non-partisan federal commission whose sole responsibility is to set up state and federal representative districts. This commission would appointed by federal judges and overseen by the Judicial Branch of government. It si clear, that this can no longer be handled by politicians.
While the Judicial System is not a perfect solution, because judges are political appointees, they are also tied to upholding the law and the constitution.
If anything we have learned, since 2017, that this country can no longer be operated by tradition or various agreements/protocols. Our current president has clearly shown that these can be abused.
20
@Nick Metrowsky Um, of course we know who is a citizen and who isn't. The government has records of your birth and your social security number and knows whether you are a citizen. The Census is not a counting of who is and isn't a citizen. It's a survey of the population and the Census has not asked all households about citizenship since the 1950s.
2
Corruption in this Administration is beyond comprehension. One doesn't even know where they will go next to attack our Democratic Institutions. A simple 10 year census required by the Constitution, carried on effortlessly since 1790 is now being gerrymandered by Trump and his cohorts.
I do not know why the House of Representatives don't start impeachment proceedings. There's plenty of evidence regarding this census question, the maltreatment of immigrants seeking asylum, trying to stop the investigation of Russian interference with our elections to start the process. Maybe that will get Trumps attention. Bring all these matters into the public eye through the impeachment process and drag it out one agonizing month after another.
For crying out loud, do something Congress.
123
@cherrylog754 At this point I am beginning to believe that the Impeachment process needs to slowly unfold. Carefully, slowly, no rush. The onus then clearly falls on Trumputin and his ethically challenged supporters. Time to call them out into the open. Transparency will destroy them politically. Meanwhile, voters can use the ballot in 2020 to take our country back. The ballot is a strong bullet - use it.
18
@Gordon Jones
I wish voting still mattered, but after what happened in Oregon over the pas two weeks, we're far beyond trusting the ballot box to preserve the republic as a democracy.
18
If the question asking if I am a citizen ends up on the census, I will be answering "no" and I hope most Americans do the same
10
@Keith Goldberg I wouldn't do that... That's just what they are looking for. Everyone, whether they are or not - should answer YES. In this case...it's JUST SAY YES
9
@Keith Goldberg: I will leave the "citizenship" question blank. The fact that Trump put it in is enough for me to distrust it's later use. Better yet, let every person in American, whether a citizen or not leave it blank.
I never side with people who insist I should NOT know something. The only explanation is, that regardless of their explanations, they believe that if I have this information I could take (or not take) an action that would impede their hidden goal. Your government, financial advisor, real estate broker, or your own kids- if they just don’t want you to know it is a big red flag.
4
The whole thing is depressing because Pres. Trump continues to be accountable to no one, and there are no consequences. He ignores Congress (at least the House) by instructing his staff to not testify, even in the face of subpoenas. Now he is intent on ignoring the Supreme Court’s hold on his citizenship question. If he answers neither to Congress or the Supreme Court, he has achieved his goal of being the unchallenged King or Emperor.
27
@Pete
One can only hope and pray that he loses in 2020, is prosecuted in the southern district of NY and dies, an outcast, in prison.
One thing we can be sure about is that Trump and the GOP do not feel constrained by law or custom. Rushing to perform the census digitally gives them far too many ways to alter the results. The demographic trends have created an existential crisis for the (currently constituted) GOP, so I fully expect foul play. Is there really any reason to expect otherwise?
24
It’s difficult to think of July 4th this year as a great holiday with bright hopes for the future.
Our country is currently in the midst of a great catastrophe with little to hope for except a change of heart by Republicans.
And they are not much praised for heart.
59
@A. Stanton
Well said. I used to disagree with you often but more recently I find your comments express my own feelings remarkably ably. I'm not going to guess why, but I appreciate your pithy eloquence.
8
@A. Stanton, All the more reason we need to celebrate it as the birthday of America, the day that the Declaration of Independence was signed. Plan to celebrate our traditional democratic values and not to make America "grate".
3
If the census is being implemented digitally, it is very suceptible to being compromised. Trump doesn't want an accurate account of the "persons" residing in the United States. He wants to count those that will strengthen the position of the GOP. He wants to deprive "blue states" of federal funds as they don't support his agenda. This guy is off the rails completely. The people who continue to serve him in any politically appointed position are not fulfilling their oath to support and defend the Constitution. They should all be prosecuted if they implement the citizenship question in violation of the Supreme Court.
56
@dairyfarmersdaughter
It's a major concern. In addition to the worries about run of the mill bugs , we have to worry about foreign hacks. He would do anything to "get even" and have his way,including violating the separation of the of Census from partisan forces.
Not sure we'll have the safeguards to handle this.
( another dairyfarmersdaughter)
8
I would say that if he ignores this Supreme Court decision, Congress should ignore the other decision, and stop gerrymandering.
15
@Charlie Messing
FWIW, the court decision literally asks Congress to take action regarding gerrymandering. I DO NOT agree with Robert's logic, and believe that Kagan's dissent is correct, but all the Supreme Court ruled was that the federal court system has no authority to block partisan gerrymandering, in part because explicit authority over that sort of thing is granted to Congress (basically, it was intended by the Framers to be a question decided by Congress not the courts).
7
@Geordan
Yes but the constitution includes equal protection under the law. As others have pointed out, the Supreme Court has the right and responsibility to enforce it,just as it did to end Jim Crow.
4
Not answering the question is not enough. If the question is on there, we must stop the census. I am calling for mass civil disobedience. We must all refuse to answer the entire census, and accept the consequences.
We must all be willing to go to jail for refusing to sit in the back of the bus.
6
@Edward Allen problem is... there is no law regarding taking the census, so it's not like anyone will go to jail. Everyone should just answer YES whether they are or not.
7
@Lorraine Anne Davis I am, to be own horror, honestly, advocating we all stop the census, not just protest a question. The purpose of the question is to scare off people. Not answering the question or lying on the question doesn't solve the problem: the entire census is a farce. If the count is not accurate, it must not be allowed to happen. At all. That is what I am advocating.
1
@Lorraine Anne Davis, I do believe that answering falsely is a punishable offense. (If I am wrong, I hope someone will call me out on this.) I also believe in the mass civil disobedience that Edward Allen advocates as the right choice. But the very worst choice is refusing to answer. It will mean that your district will be undercounted and lose both in representation and in proper sharing of government funds. The Red States are already feeding at the trough kept filled by residents of the Blue States. Please do not make it worse.
5
Should the (illegal) question of citizenship end up being include on the census form, then EVERYONE who opposes its inclusion should leave it unanswered.
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@Santa Fean and therein lies the problem.
We should leave it unanswered. How do you plan on doing this on the online form?
If none of us affirm we are citizens, the question is moot.
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@Cinderella7
That's exactly what our household has decided to do: we are going to leave the question blank.
As Christians we cannot answer it as its purpose is essentially theft: to aid the Trump Admin in stealing representation from Blue States.
4
if there is one thing we have learned in the digital age its that nothing beats a paper trail.
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@allen, It's like Samuel Goldwyn once remarked, "An oral contract is not worth the paper it is written on."
1
The census can't be entirely accurate until it includes US citizens living overseas.
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@John Matthews I don't think they are counted if they are not in the United States. The census counts who is in the country, not citizens.
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@John Matthews
It is meant to be a count of everyone in residence in the US on a defined day. In 2010, it was April 1. ( yes.) US residents who simply happened to be away on business or vacation are counted( if they complete the material) but it has no means of capturing everyone living in a different country. The US doesn't track people's movements in that way.
There is no central process of registering every US citizen who traveled overseas without returning to a residence here
From the 2010 Rules:
"U.S. CITIZENS AND THEIR DEPENDENTS LIVING OUTSIDE THE U.S.
U.S. citizens living outside the U.S. who are employed as civilians by the U.S. Government, including dependents living with them - Counted as part of the U.S. overseas population. They should not be included on any U.S. census questionnaire.
U.S. citizens living outside the U.S. who are not employed by the U.S. Government, including dependents living with them - Not counted in the census.
U.S. military personnel living on or off a military installation outside the U.S., including dependents living with them - Counted as part of the U.S. overseas population. They should not be included on any U.S. census questionnaire.
U.S. military personnel on U.S. military vessels with a homeport outside the U.S. - Counted as part of the U.S. overseas population. They should not be included on any U.S. census questionnaire."
Check out: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/counting-uncountable-overseas-americans
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Trump is looking for a way to do this and then there will be no time to prevent it. He will just a modification and the pocket DoJ will approve.
"In a criminal action the law is strictly construed in favor of the defendant, and in our country, at least, both judge and jury are far more inclined to consider his rights than they are the interests of the general public; while in addition it is always true that a man's general practices may be so bad that a civil action will lie when it may not be possible to convict him of any one criminal act. There is unfortunately a certain number of our fellow-countrymen who seem to accept the view that unless a man can be proved guilty of some particular crime he shall be counted a good citizen, no matter how infamous the life he has led, no matter how pernicious his doctrines or his practices."
Theodore Roosevelt - 1907
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Census is a costly endeavor at a time when we have a 22 trillion dollars national debt. How can anyone be sure that census count be done right when we cannot agree on a criteria for accurate and secure. Do something just for the sake of doing it and not doing it right is an exercise in futility. We cannot afford to continue to waste the empty national treasury on something that serves political ends of partisans. As an independent, I find that 2020 census which is during a presidential year is heavily politicized and devalued by the mistrust of the purpose of the flawed endeavor.
When is America going to curb the waste and stop making the same mistakes over and over again. Do we want a perfect union or we want the same same old ineffective ways of doing things. An independent nation even one that is a melting pot has to first be responsive to its citizens and taking a count of its citizens would be a good start for an accurate count.
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@Girish Kotwal
Often you make cogent comments. However - not doing the Census - as required in the Constitution, not due to th e whims of the President or Congress, because it's too expensive or not perfect -would leave the US without vital information needed for planning.
"Skipping it"once would be a sign that one more guideline for the rational government was capable of being discarded.
The data collected has been kept well separated from the partisan parts of government.
It's accuracy depends first and foremost on the understanding of people who live here that it is duty, it is something that is both completely voluntary but vitally important.
There is never going to be a perfect questionnaire or 100% response rate. People's fears and delusion impact the accuracy (did you know that the last time around. Rush Limbaugh told his listeners to refuse to fill out the forms because the Census was some sort of trick initiated by Pres. Obama? How can rational rules deal with that?)
Again, it is a Constitutional requirement and an important source of information. Stop it because we aren't perfectly ready -- and we simply fall behind.
We have other "costly endeavors" that could be cut -- and sources of taxes.
This is not frivolous.
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@cheryl
What is frivolous is the cost of them to stop printing as they just did. How many millions did Trump just cost us again.
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@cheryl from Yorktown. I am glad you often find my comments cogent but there are times I also have less patience for doing something over and over again with the same mistakes and without perfecting due to some political considerations or appeasement of some lobby. The census done once in 10 years will be an inaccurate count without a breakdown of the total count of all residents in real time into citizens, legal residents, visitors, undocumented, age group or seniors and non seniors, gainfully employed or unemployed or on government benefits, with or without health insurance. Often politicians throw numbers which are inaccurate to serve their ends or redistrict congressional districts without accurate numbers..
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Even under 'normal' conditions without a major dispute in the runup, the census undercounts people who are disadvantaged by income, ethnic/national origin, etc. because they are suspicious of the intrusion and the census takers 'on the ground' are not like them. Now, with the census relying so heavily on internet access, the drop-off will be exaggerated.
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Great article, but there are other vulnerabilities and aspects of the census that have not had enough attention and would be fodder for future articles:
1. Census forms will only be translated into 13 languages. In California alone, over 200 languages are spoken at home.
2. Facebook and other social media entities have not sufficiently committed to prevent nefarious actors from disseminating disinformation
3. Only about 20% of the country will have mailed census forms. The rest will need to do it digitally, and approximately 19 million people do not have access to internet. Even fewer have access to internet that is reliable or close to home.
4. Questions about race/ethnicity will not include Middle Eastern or North African
5. The administration has not agreed to suspend ICE raids during the month of the census- another reason people won’t open their doors.
6. No undocumented enumerators this census - which means that we are missing those trusted messengers that we have had in the past.
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@Annie Carroll You say the administration has not agreed to suspend ICE raids during the census. Why would they? If people have had their say in court and the court has ordered their deportation, I support ICE enforcement of the court's orders.
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@Annie Carroll
Thank you. This is very important and should be a Times pick.
Yes, the Census must be accurate and secure; but asking a mafia-like con man to guarantee that, is like asking a poisonous tree to produce edible fruit. And as long as he is surrounded by political hacks, if not prostituted politicians 'a la Miller and McConnell, the Census' safety may be impossible. And 'a fox guarding the henhouse' may be kids play, compared to the current malevolence floating freely in the White House, and where republican complicity is taken for granted.
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I am pleased that the Editorial Board is skeptical of the Donald Trump administration’s motivation to accurately, fairly and truthfully count the Census. I, a puny and insignificant citizen, nevertheless cast a highly-reasonable doubt that it will do so.
We read here today in the Times of:
(a) Linda Greenhouse’s magnificent essay about the citizenship question before the Supreme Court, and
(b) the president’s sworn determination to place the question on the soon-to-be-printed Census the very same question that the Court denied by returning the case to the Appellate Court. Would anyone be at all surprised by an executive decision to completely circumvent the SCOTUS?
Worse, in my humble and frightened estimation, is the administration’s publication of the “results” of the Census. Can we now expect an honest count? I don’t think so.
With the government at his sole command, just who is going to stop him? The president and Wilbur Ross, the frustrated, defeated and exposed-as-a-liar Commerce of Secretary can always order their subordinates to hand in false data. Who or what agency will gainsay them? It’s the only way that they can reach their goal—unless Trump’s the president in 2029. If he’s president-for-life, the population will be what he wants it to be.
And with unlimited gerrymandering available on a permanent basis to the Republicans, Donald Trump will have achieved a unique goal: twisting a decadent democracy into a menacing monarchy.
Won’t America be great?
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@Red Sox, ‘04, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18
I'm fervently hoping for a Biden Restoration.
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@Red Sox, ‘04, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18
"With the government at his sole command,"
Look I've got to say, that, like Trump himself, people seem to think the position of President is more powerful than it actually is. Don't buy the hype.
There is a simple solution to this problem: Hire The Terminator.
When Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor of California he rode a wave of anti government sentiment mainly over the imposition of a new tax on automobiles.
Schwarzenegger told the DMV they had to get the software fix done - and done soon. The response from the DMV was that it would take two and a half years. The Terminator told the DMV that they had 60 days or everyone connected with senior management or computer systems would be fired.
60 days later, the system didn't impose the tax and worked quite well - you get people's attention when you threaten to kill their jobs and have the power to do so.
The census department is outsourcing all their work, they pay these people by the hour - of course it's going to take longer. Appoint Arnold (a Republican so it's not that much of a stretch) as the Census Terminator and see what happens when they get paid only by the proven completion of their work.
As a after thought, if any of the people responsible for the original ACA enrollment system are engaged in this matter, fire them immediately - in 40+ years in tech I've never see that level of incompetence.
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@William
Good example. I suspect Arnold was exceptional in that he wanted the job done. We should not assume that of all "leaders". (Here's to you, Andrew.)
The Times, per its motto, has a duty to print counterpoints worth publishing. There is a reality here that those (who are) to the Left of me on the political spectrum are missing.
The issues of the census question and of the contrived crisis (by the failures of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to build civil societies) on the border reveal the real goal of all of this chicanery.
Turn Texas Blue and the Republicans will NEVER again win a national election.
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The Census results will surely reflect population increases in red and purple states - Texas! Georgia! Arizona! - so therefore blue states will lose out on congressional seats, but I still support a full and accurate count.
One of the interesting things to watch for is the projected rise in Asian and Latinx residents, especially in southern states. Nathan Grawe wrote a fascinating book about this last year.
Black and white populations are declining, especially in the northeast and midwest (they stopped having babies during the recession and haven't started back up), but other groups have increased. The impact of this change is still years away, since the recession kids are not only in 5th grade, but the Census will at least capture the true numbers.
3
For the last 15 years I have heard [estimates] there are 12 to 25 million "undocumented immigrant workers" residing in the US. With such a huge disparity this tells me the "undocumented" never bothered to fill the form out the last time- so the census question was really a non-issue!
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@Aaron Would those unnamed sources be the same ones that Trump often cites to counter criticism?
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@Aaron
It doesn't actually tell us that, but don't let me disturb you.
2
Rig the population count? It's the liberals who are trying to do that by inciting people to shirk their responsibilities and avoid being counted.
This seems to happen with every count. I remember one where census counters were being threatened and attacked because people were spreading false rumors about evil conspiracies.
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@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus
As an enumerator doing cleanup last time around, the conspiracy stories I was told were strictly right wing: telling me this was part of an new Obama conspiracy. They also believed that all information going to the Census Bureau was automatically available to the rest of government agencies. Which it hasn't been. So far.
I met a few undocumented people ( an educated guess, or sometimes they told me) but they gave me the minimum info necessary (how many, ages), often with more courtesy than the ones with the kooky ideas. Of a lot of people spoken to, friendly, apathetic, odd or angry, only a couple struck me as dangerous.
But no, never heard of a "liberal" advising people to shirk this civic duty.
14
Strange since all the rumors and fear mongering around the census seem to be coming from the Right and not the Left
2
@cheryl
Then why are the liberals so opposed to a logical question that has been on the census before? The very controversy in the media is a warning to immigrants to avoid the census.
1
Trump seems to think he looks triumphantly defiant when he (again) contradicts other officials, but he just shows himself to be incompetent and dishonest. Besides, soon enough, we’ll see the forms and just what questions are included.
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@NM -- esteemed daughter,
this president can't take NO for an answer. His open defiance of the Supreme Court's decision shows a callous disrespect for the rule of law, in this case, a conservative majority, that voted to block the citizenship question. The Roberts Court saw through the Ross charade and made the right call.
This incident is a harbinger. Should he lose the 2020 election do you think he'll concede and go gently into the night? No he won't. He'll insist on recount after recount and refuse to vacate the White House, and every Republican will stand by him. If he goes down he's determined to take democracy with him.
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@NM; Esteemed daughter of the Cairene scholar: When the “president” was at G20, I think he asked Vladimir Putin, “How can I grow up to be like you?” And the president of Mother Russia smirked and answered, “Just do it!” Then he cackled. Then, in North Kit, the American “president” whispered in the ear of his love, Kim Jong-un, “I wanna be like you,” with puppy dog eyes. Kim smirked and said, “Just do it.”
And he’s doing it.
1
"Perhaps now officials could devote their energies to ensuring that this vital process isn’t undermined by incompetence or malicious interference."
Perhaps.
Why must we keep pretending like the fox isn't already in the henhouse with ridiculous demands like this for things like honesty, accountability, fairness, maturity, empathy, humanity, respect for the law, diplomacy, adherence to the constitution, and so on and so forth?
just focus on getting this guy out of there.
24
"the Trump administration needs to make sure it is accurate and secure..."
You do realize what you just said there, yes?
And to John Brown, below: of course it means something to be a citizen, although not as much as you seem to imagine if you live in Puerto Rico, say, or Washington DC.
But for all this FOX/Trump yammer and hoo-hah, it doesn't mean a thing in terms of this census.
Your founders, the men who created to the country you occasionally choose to act like you love, did not want or see the value of a count of citizens. They wanted to know who is here, every single person.
They also didn't believe being a citizen was some automatic short-cut to good-person-ness. They took their people wherever they came from, and invited them in, and asked them to help out. Neither here nor there, sorry...
The census is not and was never supposed to be a count of citizens. It is, and it only is, a total number of people residing in the United States, no matter who they are or how they got here.
Your heroes, and your correspondents, are lying to you. And you seem to be making surprisingly easy.
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@oogada. Then why was the citizenship question on there for decades?
Why would you assume for a minute that the Trump govt is going to do anything but figure out ways to defraud the public on the census count for Republican advantage. Don't waste your time exhorting Trump to do an accurate count. Use your investigative skills to dig out more information on the dishonest deeds done by Trump in manipulating and presenting other data of public importance
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@IamCurious
Trump's real purpose in resurrecting the issue is to delay or even miss the 2020 census, altogether. The longer it is delayed or ignored, the longer it favors the Republicans. Trump will be more than happy to tie it up in the courts for years.
16
@IamCurious Well, it sounds like your argument is with the Constitution of the United States, which says in Article Two that every ten years the country will count every resident. Not every citizen. Every resident. Conservatives are always holding up the Constitution wrapped in the flag and demanding that it be protected.
Here's your chance.
39
Many people are naive enough to believe that their own wishful sentiment has any bearing to this and many other issues our nation and other countries face.
One example is the “Me Too Movement” that from it’s own label/name suggests a “count” to include these people.
Being “inclusive” for equal pay or any other social and human rights issue bears more valuable and validation when there is an accurate account and accountability of data and numerical information.
So why exclude or parse the census?
1
Talk about the Imperial Presidency. Trump is now asserting that the "citizenship question" will be included in the Census -- regardless of what the Supreme Court has ruled, and regardless of what his own Commerce Department has announced. On top of that, he's dictated that tanks will be included in the Fourth of July celebration on the Mall, which he has now co-opted in myriad ways in an attempt to put himself in the spotlight and shower himself with glory.
Had President Obama even hinted at doing either of these things, he would have been uniformly pilloried. Instead, Congress is shrugging these transgressions off, as are Americans generally.
What has this country come to? Do we need to wait until 2020 to crown Trump King?
30
"Perhaps now officials could devote their energies to insuring that this vital process isn't undermined by incompetence or malicious interference." As we like to say here at the Census Bureau "Don't count on it."
6
If the goal is an honest, accurate assessment of America's population, then the census needs to be conducted by people outside the Trump administration. As we've seen, Trump and his associates can't be trusted to be honest about anything at all.
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@Mike 67% of voters say the census should be able to ask whether people living in the U.S. are citizens, according to a new Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll. The poll found that the inclusion of the question was supported among members of both parties, with 88% of Repubs & 52% of Dems supporting its inclusion. 63% of independents say they support the question being on the census. We've been told for decades that there are 11 million illegal immigrants in the US, then magically the number jumps to 20 million. I've seen estimates as high as 30 million. Isn't it about time to try & get an actual count? No doubt the GOP has a long-range agenda here. Democrats oppose a citizenship question for one reason, power. If it does dissuade illegal immigrants from being counted, it will reduce the number of Representatives they receive for the House. The more representatives that are in the House, the more power they have as well as more Federal funds. At real issue here is should Federal money & House representation be determined by how many illegal immigrants you have in your state? Many Americans would say absolutely not. The GOP feels that illegal immigrants should not be counted when congressional representation is calculated. If this occurs then western blue states would get serious about immigration reform so the thinking goes. It's fair to ask why are we permitting non-citizens & illegal immigrants who don't vote to alter the makeup of Congress? Is this why Dems favor sanctuary cities?
2
@Bill Brown To continue your own line of reasoning, Republicans want a citizenship question for one reason, power. And yes, it’s fair to ask why are we permitting non-citizens & illegal immigrants who don't vote to alter the makeup of Congress? The answer is, because the Constitution says so. Representation, according to the Constitution, is based on number of residents, not voters.
8
@Bill Brown
There is nothing wrong with the question itself being asked in the census, IMO, since knowing how many illegal aliens there are might be useful.
The problem is who has access to the results and what are they going to do with it. No one trusts the political parties - of the government which is not apolitical - to not use the data to their own advantage.
As usual, the data, the question, the part that is purely technical or scientific is not corrupt - it's the people who cheat.
2
If the Census cannot even tell us how many citizens
there are in America, let alone how many Immigrants
documented and un-documented, what good is it.
Does it mean anything to be a citizen or not ?
12
@John Brown
The Constitution explicitly requires an “actual Enumeration” of “all persons,” imposing on the federal government the duty to count the “whole number of persons in each State,” regardless of citizenship status.
114
@John Brown, In this case, the answer to your question is no, according to the Constitution.
31
@John Brown In the case of Trump supporters, citizenship doesn't imply much other than anger and resentment over humans who are not white and/or not American and/or not Christian. The Census is prescribed by the Constitution to count everyone living within our borders. It is not a toy to help white nationalists shrink the human race.
125
It's clear that the Trump team wants to game the 202 census. The payoff is too great to ignore. It makes no sense that they'd give up this easily. It's far more likely that they'll just fall back to less blatant methods now that our attention is diverted. Asking them to ensure that this vital process is not undermined is like asking the fox to make sure the hens are well cared for.
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