HOUSTON — Studded with taquerias and Catholic churches on street after street, the 29th Congressional District of Texas has among the highest proportions of Hispanics in the country.
But the fact that the district — which traces a jagged semicircle around Houston’s east side — is three-quarters Hispanic may not be its most defining statistic. These days, the most important number may be the estimated share of its residents who are not American citizens: one in four.
A battle is brewing over the way the nation tallies its population, especially in immigrant-dense places like Texas’s 29th District, that could permanently alter the American political landscape. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared ready to allow the next census in 2020 to ask respondents if they are American citizens — a question that has never been asked of all the nation’s residents in the census’s
View the complete April 23 article by Michael Wines on The New York Times website here.