The following commentary by Eleanor Clift was posted on the Daily Beast website February 16, 2018:
The question seems intended to ensure that immigrants and minorities are further undercounted, hurting blue states and urban areas.
The Constitution requires that every person—not citizen—living in the United States must be counted every 10 years. Now, a Justice Department request to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census has put the once-in-a-decade count of the American people into the crosshairs of partisan politics.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, whose department includes the Census Bureau, has until April 1—the deadline to submit questions for the upcoming census—to decide whether to bow to the apparent political pressure.
Ross was a census taker when he was in college, and is seen as someone who understands and respects the process. “If left to his own devices, Ross will make the right decision because he knows that the 2020 census will be wrecked if a citizenship question is added,” says Phil Sparks, co-director of The Census Project, a nonpartisan watchdog group.
Questions normally undergo years of testing, but common sense says that adding one about citizenship status would have a chilling effect on participation that would lead to an undercount of immigrants and minorities, hurting blue states and urban areas—setting the stage for Republicans to re-draw still more favorable congressional districts.
“What would be the purpose of asking a question that can send millions of people into the shadows?” asks Terri Ann Lowenthal, a former House and Senate aide who specializes in census policy.
The purpose for some Republicans seems to be using the census as another tool for voter suppression. In past years leading up to the census, the administration in power had immigration enforcement ease up so that people would come forward to be counted.
John Thompson, former director of the Census Bureau, told The Daily Beast that in 2000, there was a memorandum of understanding with the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service, precursor to ICE, Immigration Control and Enforcement).
View the post here.