FEARS HISPANICS MISSED IN CENSUS
Potential census shortfalls spur worries of undercount in states with large Hispanic populations.
WASHINGTON — Joseph Garcia spent months working to ensure that Arizona’s Hispanic residents were counted in last year’s decennial census. After this week’s release of the first set of results, he worries the government still missed thousands of them.
Arizona, along with Texas and Florida — other states with large Hispanic populations — fell short of expectations in Monday’s reveal of census data, resulting in smaller gains in congressional seats than projected, or none at all. Historically, the census has missed portions of Hispanic communities, shortchanging them on representation and millions of dollars in federal programs, said Garcia, executive director of the advocacy group Chicanos por la Causa Action Fund.
“I just don’t want everyone to focus on ‘Oh, we didn’t get another congressional seat’; the harm is much deeper than that,” Garcia said. “It’s compounding because it’s going to be year after year … over the next decade of less funding for all these services, which are really needed by many people.”
In addition to apportionment, census results are used to draw legislative maps and help guide more than $1.5 trillion in federal spending every year. However, it’s uncertain at this point how many people the census process may have missed.
During Monday’s reveal of the results, Census Bureau officials cautioned the apportionment totals did not include any demographic information. Additionally, they pointed out that the populations for such states as Texas and Florida came within 1% of projections made previously.
Multiple experts said it could be months before the public gets a better picture of the accuracy of the 2020 census. Detailed redistricting information that will include race and ethnicity data is slated for release over the summer.
Even the Census Bureau itself doesn’t know at the moment — much of the accuracy assessment for the count is based on a post-count survey the agency will complete by next year.
In 2010, the Census Bureau’s postenumeration survey indicated the agency may have undercounted the Hispanic population by as much as 1.5% nationwide.
Tom Wolf, senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, said assessing potential undercounts is “a story that is going to be compiled over the next year.”
However, he pointed out that there are “all sorts of factors that would trend toward decreasing the quality and equity of the count” that could show up in later data releases.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki referred questions about a potential undercount of the Hispanic population to the Census Bureau during a news briefing Tuesday. She noted, though, that the Biden administration reversed the Trump administration’s effort to exclude undocumented immigrants from apportionment data and gave the agency extra time to finish the census results.
Redistricting expert Kim Brace said Monday’s population results revealed the potential for a significant undercount of the Hispanic population nationwide. It will take more data to know for sure, he said, but, if there are undercounts, it will make it harder to draw fair congressional and legislative seats in the coming months.
“My gut tells me” that Hispanics who “got turned off by the Trump administration’s actions and the citizenship issue probably did not participate in the census. That doesn’t bode well for redistricting,” Brace said.
Arturo Vargas, CEO of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Education Fund, found it “surprising” that states with large Hispanic communities fell short of projections.
“Once more details are released, we will be able to better determine to what extent the Latino population was fairly and accurately counted,” Vargas said in a statement.
Still, half of the 10 states with the highest Hispanic populations — California, Illinois, New Mexico, New Jersey and New York — beat the Census Bureau’s earlier estimates of population growth.