Make everyone count
Census citizenship question likely would hurt size of Texas’ congressional delegation.
Only one Texas lawmaker, Democratic state Rep. Gene Wu of Houston, has joined a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s new question about citizenship on the 2020 U.S. census. The rest apparently believe it’s better politically to support an obvious scheme to find and deport immigrants in the country illegally than to fight a bad idea that could cost Texas both representation in Congress and billions in federal funding.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced in March that he was adding the question to the census at the request of the Justice Department to better enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits discriminatory treatment of minorities. He later admitted he had earlier discussed the idea with some of the biggest cheerleaders for President Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant policies, including former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.
Ross didn’t care that the Census Bureau advised him not to include the question.
The problem isn’t how many people would answer a question about their citizenship; it’s how many won’t. The census is supposed to count everyone living in the United States, legally or not. It has nothing to do with who’s eligible to vote. The numbers are used to figure out how many seats each state gets in the House of Representatives and to divvy up more than $675 billion in federal funding for Medicaid and other programs.
Recognizing the potential consequences, 18 states, 15 cities and various other groups have filed lawsuits around the country to keep citizenship off the census questionnaire. Wu has added his name to a suit filed by a group called Asian Americans Advancing Justice, which alleges the citizenship question is based on racial animus and is unconstitutional.
“It’s a very obvious attempt to scare a population into not filling out the form,” said Wu, who represents the Gulfton area. “The citizenship question will directly harm my community, which is one of the largest immigrant and refugee communities in Texas. They’re very distrustful of the current U.S. government, even the ones who are citizens.”
That’s understandable given the way the Trump administration has added harassment of legal residents to his tactics to find and deport those here illegally. The administration announced plans to deny green cards to anyone who might even think of applying for help through Medicaid, food stamps or other temporary assistance programs.
The first trial addressing the census citizenship question began last week in U.S. District Court in New York after the U.S. Supreme Court denied the Trump administration’s request that it be halted. The trial is expected to last two weeks. Meanwhile, the House Oversight Committee, which will soon be under Democratic control, could also play a role in the question’s fate.
Texas’ entire congressional delegation should be up in arms about the citizenship question. The next census is expected to give Texas three more House seats, which would bolster the delegation’s ability to promote this state’s interests in Washington. That may not happen if the estimated 1.6 million unauthorized immigrants in the Lone Star State are undercounted or not counted at all.
Being a border state, Texas should be leading the charge to update this country’s archaic immigration laws so more people who want to become upstanding citizens or legal residents can do just that. Unfortunately, that would require more Texas politicians to take a position on immigration contrary to the president’s, and too many seem afraid to do that.
They have the exact opposite of political courage.
The census hasn’t included a citizenship question since 1950 because it isn’t necessary. There’s also no benefit. Many immigrants are so fearful these days of sharing information that might lead to them or a loved one being deported that they’re likely to avoid the question or avoid the census altogether. Asking about citizenship will only undermine the goal of the census by impeding Congress’s constitutionally mandated duty to accurately count all residents of the United States.
Trump may not care about the Constitution, but he should. So should Texans who will only be harmed by his antics.