Our view: Don’t mess with the Census questionnaire
The Trump administration has decided to ask people, on the 2020 Census form, whether they are U.S. citizens. Of course it has. This is what we have come to expect from a crassly political administration unconstrained by accuracy or constitutional principle.
The administration is apparently untroubled that Census-takers have concluded that the question would depress participation among immigrants, legal and otherwise. In fact, that seems to be the point.
It’s bad enough that President Trump has been intent on advancing a narrative of America’s victimization by immigrants. Now he has decided to debase the Census for partisan advantage.
The Commerce Department announcement about the citizenship question, made late Monday night, might not be the last word. Within hours, California, which could lose a member of Congress as the result of decreased Census participation, filed suit. It was later joined by New York.
The decision to add the question was made at the request of the Justice Department, over the objection of career Census-takers. Its putative purpose is to find out more about who is in this country, lawfully and unlawfully.
But the government already knows this. Each year the Census Bureau conducts something known as the American Community Survey. It gathers a wealth of data on people’s income, languages spoken, military status, home values, home heating systems, health insurance, work status and more — including whether they are citizens.
Census workers are able to gather this level of detail because they don’t try to ask it of everyone. Rather they get it from a cross section of about 3 million people, or about 1% of the population.
The actual Census, conducted every 10 years, is a sacred trust mandated by the Constitution to gain the most accurate count possible. This trust is sacred because it determines how many congressional districts each state gets. It is also used by states in their legislative redistricting efforts and by governments at all levels to make spending decisions.
Census compliance relies on public trust. Trying to ask the citizenship question of every household in America is a move calculated to make people uneasy about participation.
Undocumented workers will be the most troubled by the question, particularly at a time when the administration is aggressively pursuing deportations. But legal immigrants, rightly or wrongfully fearful that they could lose their status, will also be wary.
These non-citizens need to be counted. They pay taxes, have kids in public schools and contribute in many ways to communities. The Supreme Court has even ruled that non-citizens count toward the drawing of political districts, even though they themselves can’t vote.
Trying to spook them out of participation is an idea that only an administration as malicious as this one would even consider.