Citizenship question could have cost state $550M a year

Judge’s census decision spares Connecticut loss of federal funds

A federal judge's decision Tuesday blocking the Trump administration from adding a question to the 2020 Census about citizenship could spare Connecticut the loss of about half a billion dollars a year in federal money, according to a data analysis group.

The state receives about $2,200 per person annually from Washington for a range of programs such as Medicaid, food stamps, highway planning and other initiatives. The most recent estimates of foreign-born residents in Connecticut are between 506,274 and 517,512, according to the Connecticut Data Collaborative.

The number of naturalized citizens and noncitizens each is about 250,000, according to the organization, with a margin of error of plus or minus 5,619. Multiplying $2,200 by 250,000 yields $550 million, an estimate of funding that would have been vulnerable to cuts if a smaller population, discounting noncitizens, was recorded in the census.

Critics of the citizenship question say it will intimidate noncitizens from participating in the census, leaving Connecticut with an undercount and loss of federal money. The state needs all the help it can get because its population is growing more slowly than the U.S. population.

The federal government spent $8 billion in 2015 for large, federally funded programs that rely on census data, including Medicaid, special education and the Children's Health Insurance Program. An under-reported count could jeopardize a substantial portion of the money for the 10 years between census counts.

Justice Department spokeswoman Kelly Laco said in a statement that the decision by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to reinstate a citizenship question for the first time since 1950 was reasonable because the government has asked a citizenship question for most of the past 200 years.

When Ross announced the plan in March, he said the question was needed, in part, to help the government enforce the Voting Rights Act, a 1965 law meant to protect political representation of minority groups.

Observers expect the decision will be appealed to a federal appeals court and ultimately the U.S. Supreme Court.

Michelle Riordan-Nold, executive director of Connecticut Data Collaborative, said money allocated to Connecticut is based on many reasons, such as need and age. She cautioned that a calculation of federal aid affected by the citizenship question is only an estimate.

Tyler Kleykamp, the state's chief data officer at the Office of Policy and Management, agreed, saying the numbers are a “bit more nuanced.”

Judge Jesse M. Furman in New York ruled that such a question would be constitutional, but that Ross had added it arbitrarily and not followed proper administrative procedures.

“He failed to consider several important aspects of the problem; alternately ignored, cherry-picked, or badly misconstrued the evidence in the record before him; acted irrationally both in light of that evidence and his own stated decisional criteria; and failed to justify significant departures from past policies and practices,” Furman wrote.

Democrats in Connecticut applauded the judge's decision and strongly criticized President Donald Trump for insisting on the citizenship question.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said adding the question “was part of the administration's xenophobic and politically motivated campaign against communities of color.”

State Attorney General William Tong said citizenship information would reduce participation, “particularly in immigrant communities that feel justifiably threatened by the Trump administration's openly hostile political agenda.”

Stephen Singer can be reached at ssinger@courant .com. Story includes reporting by the Associated Press.