Census ‘emergency’ could cut minorities
Undercount will siphon funding, activists warn
Irma Cruz uses her soft voice and reassuring smile to try to persuade Latino residents of El Paso, Texas, to fill out the 2020 census. The civil rights activist explains that being counted as part of the official U.S. population means more money for their families and neighbors, as well as a voice in Congress.
These days, it’s a tough sale. Many of those living in the historic Segundo Barrio neighborhood are too busy working, they tell her. Some don’t have the language skills to fill out the form, which is available only in English. And many are worried the government might use the information against them.
“I tell them not to worry, their data is protected by federal law, but they still worry,” says Cruz, policy and civic engagement campaign coordinator for the
Border Network for Human Rights. “It’s kind of an emergency now. People need to understand how important this is.”
For many communities across the nation, especially people of color and those living in rural areas, the calculus is simple and dire: Fill out the 2020 census, or risk a historic undercount that could jeopardize everything from a share in $1.5 trillion in federal funding to political representation in Congress.
Though each census count, which happens every 10 years, has its struggles, this one has been rife with challenges, including a pandemic, a historic recession and interference from President Donald Trump, including a failed attempt to add a citizenship question, a memorandum calling to exclude unauthorized immigrants from the count and a last-minute directive to speed up the count’s completion by four weeks.
Activists say these measures are aimed against people of color – folks hit hardest by COVID-19 illnesses and deaths and pandemic-fueled unemployment – in an attempt by the administration to hurt Democratic voters. They filed lawsuits to require a full count of anyone living in the USA and extend the census data collection deadline.
“We are in a race against the clock,”
says Judy Reese Morse, president and CEO of the Urban League of Louisiana in New Orleans. She says her staff works overtime to “demystify” the census, explaining that not being counted could have dire effects on schools, community service programs and hospitals.
“We must not let up,” Morse says. “There is no other option for us.”
Morse and others hope their efforts get people to self-report, either by phone or online. Days ago, the Census Bureau started its standard practice of sending representatives to visit socalled Hard to Count households, typically folks in poor rural and urban areas where the rate of self-reporting is sometimes 20% to 50% lower than the fairly typical self-reporting national average of 63%.
At first, this outreach effort, postponed from the spring because of COVID-19, gave volunteers until Oct. 31 to contact these groups. But on Aug. 3, that deadline was moved up to Sept. 30 because, according to the census, that was the only way numbers could be tabulated in time to meet “our statutory deadline of Dec. 31, 2020, as required by law and directed by the Secretary of Commerce.”
The Census Bureau says it is “committed to a complete and accurate 2020 census” despite the accelerated timeline, according to a statement from bureau director Steven Dillingham.
The statement says the bureau has a “robust field data collection operation” and plans to add training sessions and provide rewards to enumerators – those trying to reach Hard to Count households – “who maximize hours worked.”
In 2010, census volunteers had 48 million housing units to visit in 10 weeks. This time, it’s 56 million households in six weeks.
“We are talking about communities that already have low census reporting numbers, and now you add the COVID-19 crisis and the way Latino and Black people are wary about this administration, and you have a bad situation,” says Roberto Bustillo, organizing director at Proyecto Pastoral, which foas
cuses on LA’s heavily Latino Boyle Heights area. His volunteers feverishly work the phones and hang flyers on doors to encourage people to fill out the census.
In Miami, the Rev. Rhonda Thomas normally would use churches to spread the word, but because of the health crisis, she turned to digital communication and visits to polling stations to push her Black neighbors to be counted.
“Historically, we are a people that has been left out,” Thomas says. “Being counted affects everything, the quality and size of our hospitals, schools, community centers. We need to be included.”
Map shows undercounts in Texas
A review of the Census Bureau’s Hard to Count map highlights areas of concern, including many neighborhoods with heavy Latino and Black populations that have yet to respond.
Texas stands out: A majority of its counties show fewer than 50% of residents self-reporting their census information. Edwards County, by the Rio Grande, is at just 14.8%. Other undercounted areas include almost all of New Mexico; California’s Central Valley; the southern half of Georgia; and the largely Native American Four Corners region where Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona meet.
“In 2010, there were undercounts of people of color and Native Americans on reservations, and it seems that now with even more households to visit in less time, the undercount risks being much worse,” says Steven Romalewski, who keeps a close eye on the map as part of the City University of New York’s Center for Urban Research at the Graduate Center. “It’s worrisome.”
A large census undercount will cast a long shadow, experts say.
“Census numbers hang around for a decade and are used for all sorts of government policy,” says Margo J. Anderson, author of “The American Census: A Social History.” “So if we don’t think these numbers we get are any good, we’re going to have a very complicated conversation about what to do next.”
Put more bluntly, “if the census is screwed up, it will have dramatic implications for all parts of society,” says Andrew Reamer, research professor at George Washington University’s Institute of Public Policy in Washington. “The census is foundational for democracy, as it affects redistricting, and for the efficient and fair distribution of taxpayer money.”
“To the outside world, cutting the census short by four weeks might seem like no big deal, but it’s of huge consequence,” says Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a Washington-based group that has been serving as a clearinghouse for census count activism.
The accelerated deadline threatens to “shortchange people of color, as well
low-income people and the homeless of all races. We need to press the Senate to extend the reporting deadline even if it means announcing the results in 2021. We can’t let the pressure off. This has to be done right.”
That pressure includes a letter signed by 900 national and community organizations urging Senate leaders Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to add a provision to the next COVID-19 relief bill that would give the Census Bureau four more months – until April 2021 – to report its findings.
“The census count isn’t just about political power, but it’s also a tool used by the private sector to decide where to put that next mall or store, real breadand-butter stuff that determines where you might be able to shop or work locally,” says Howard Fienberg, co-director of the Census Project, the nation’s largest census advocacy group, which organized the letter sent to McConnell and Schumer.
Fienberg notes that a big undercount is likely to affect rural areas that already face limited commercial and federal resources, places such as Big Horn County, Montana, where 82% of the population of 13,000 is uncounted by the 2020 census, or Rich County, Utah, where 88% of 1,800 have yet to respond.
“This is all about letting people know you exist,” he says.
The president has specific ideas of who should be counted in the census.
“Just as we do not give political power to people who are here temporarily, we should not give political power to people who should not be here at all,” Trump said in July in a statement explaining his desire to not count undocumented immigrants.
A range of Republican lawmakers, including U.S. Reps. Chip Roy in Texas and Brian Mast in Florida, applauded the president’s efforts. A Pew Research Center study indicates that Florida, Texas and California all stand to lose one congressional seat under Trump’s new apportionment plan.
Terry Ao Minnis, senior director of census and voting programs at the civil rights advocacy group Asian Americans Advancing Justice-AAJC, says activist groups reach out to Asian Americans to explain the role and importance of the census through social media and other outlets in 15 languages, including Cantonese, Urdu, Tagalog and Bengali.
“We just have to redouble our efforts to tell people that they can and should be counted without fear that their information will be used against them by the government,” says Minnis, whose group filed a legal complaint along with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
“People need to know they can still respond,” she says. “It’s vital.”
Running out of time
John Thompson, a statistician who directed the Census Bureau until 2017 and oversaw planning for the 2020 census, isn’t confident this count will be accurate simply because of the outsize number of households census workers need to reach during the pandemic in an unusually restricted time frame.
That could mean a redistribution of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives, which could further push the political landscape in favor of Republicans when issues important to people of color – from police brutality to social equality – are front and center.
“There’s a lot of concern, and it goes beyond party lines,” Thompson says. “Myself and other colleagues worry this census will not be suitable for apportionment.”
Activists aren’t counting on Census Bureau officials changing the Sept. 31 deadline. They’ve bolstered their efforts to boost voter registration and census response rates among people of color.
“We are in a state of emergency,” says Melanie Campbell, president of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation. “We have to make sure we don’t lose power.”
The NCBCP and other groups are pivoting from in-person outreach efforts to social media on Facebook and Twitter. There are plans to hand out census material at food distribution and COVID-19 testing sites.
One positive sign, some advocates say, is a spike in census response rates in places that have had protests demanding social justice, including New York and Los Angeles.
That uptick is believed to be “tied to a specific need of the community to figure out ways to be relevant, ways to actually impact the system,” says Austin Patrick, a strategist for Black/African American research for Team Y&R, a communication firm contracted by the census.
Activists say they are doing whatever they can to “get people to get over the fear and mistrust often associated with filling out the census, maybe now more than ever,” says Edward Hailes, general counsel for the nonprofit Advancement Project, a Washington-based group focusing on racial justice.
Hailes says his organization helps partners leverage technology and media to promote census self-reporting, through the familiar approach of radio spots and social media messages.
He feels the pressure. “For the government to suddenly say we are going to stop short on collection, that just puts a huge burden on nonprofit groups to get the word out especially under COVID-19 restrictions,” he says. “But we will do everything we can.”
The NALEO Educational Fund, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group that aims to boost Latino civic engagement, earmarks funds for targeted media messaging in cities and counties with low self-response rates, such as Yuma, Arizona; Fresno, California; and New York City’s Bronx borough.
Lizette Escobedo, director of NALEO’s national census program, says some of NALEO’s field officers find that even though there is no question on the census about citizenship, its ghost lingers.
“Even though the Supreme Court struck down having a citizenship question on the census, 50% of the people we asked still expect to find that question,” she says. “That makes them hesitate.”
In her outreach efforts across Texas, Génesis Sanchez has found that for many Latinos, concerns over health safety and job security join a fear that their information will be used against them. “I’m very worried, because as Latinos think about their current and future political power, they have to understand that a census undercount will negatively impact that power,” says Sanchez, NALEO’s Texas regional census campaign manager.
“But we have to keep fighting to the last bit,” she says. “All these communities deserve to be fairly represented both financially and politically.”