The US Public has until 11:59pm EST on Tuesday 8/7 to comment on the proposed addition of a Citizenship question to the 2020 Census. Do it. Here’s the link.
Background
Trump officials pushed Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and the Census Bureau to add a question to the 2020 Census that would ask respondents to share their citizenship status.
In the Era of Trump, when there is constant news about building the wall, detaining immigrants, ICE raids & family separation, it doesn’t take a social scientist to understand that undocumented immigrants (and even legal immigrants) would feel great apprehension about completing and returning a survey that asked them to declare their citizenship status.
This is the entire point of the proposed question. The Constitution very specifically requires a regular census to count the number of “persons” in the US, not the number of “citizens”. Inclusion of this question is intended to depress responses from the immigrant community. Why? Because Census data is used to apportion both federal funding for critical programs and the number of US representatives for each state.
If the census under-counts the number of people living in large, typically blue states, resources and representations will get reallocated to smaller, more rural red states.
This NY Times analysis, for example, suggests that California may lose four US Congressional seats due to under-counting related to the citizenship question. Oh, and this affects the number of electoral votes states are allotted during presidential elections, too.
States are fighting back against this question by filing suit against the Trump Administration. One key piece of information the courts may look at is how the US public feels about this question.
The formal way to share your perspective on this question is to submit a comment with regulations.gov. The comment period for this ends in just over 24 hours as of this writing.
Act Now
PLEASE take two minutes to go to the site linked below and comment. So far, the government had received just over 30,000 comments. Let’s add a few thousand in the remaining hours to help out the pending litigation.
Here is the LINK TO THE SITE. Go there and click on the “Comment” button:
All you have to say is:
I strongly oppose the proposed addition of a question to the 2020 Census that asks people to share their citizenship status. Please do not include the proposed question.
Feel free to embellish. Here is what I just submitted:
Please do this. Please share this post on social media and encourage friends and family to submit comments as well.
I strongly oppose the proposed addition of a question to the 2020 Census that asks people to share their citizenship status. Please do not include the proposed question.
I Strongly oppose the proposed addition of a question to the 2020 Census asking people to share their citizenship status. Do not include the proposed question.
The addition of this citizenship question will destroy the purpose of the Census and throw off the data. I strongly oppose the proposed addition of a question to the 2020 Census that asks people to share their citizenship status. Please do not include the proposed question.
I strongly oppose the proposed addition of a quedtion to the 2020 Census. Asking people to share their citizenship status. Asking this will throw off the census. Please do not include this Question.
I strongly oppose the addition of questioning a persons citizenship status on the census. This throws off the count resulting in unfair representation. Please do not include this question !
I oppose the addition of a citizenship question to the census questionnaire. Adding this question will throw off the census. Please do not add this question.
I vehemently oppose the proposed addition of a question to the 2020 Census that asks people to share their citizenship status. Please do not include the proposed question.
I OPPOSE 2020 census citizen question
I strongly oppose the proposed addition of a question to the 2020 Census that asks people to share their citizenship status. Please do not include the proposed question
I strongly oppose the quesiueq on the 2030 census asking citizen status.
I strongly oppose the question asking citizenship status in our census. The point is to count the number of PEOPLE living here. Do not allow the abuse or misuse of this critical process. The census should not be partisan in any way, shape or form. COLLECT ACCURATE DATA!! FACTS MATTER.
We do not want a question of citizenship on our census……cities with many young people from foreign countries going to our colleges and universities need representation.
We hold these truths to be self evident that All Men are Created Equal. Up against this fact censorship is unacceptable & un-American & should be unconstitutional.
I strongly oppose the proposed addition of a question to the 2020 Census that asks people to share their citizenship status. Please do not include the proposed question!
I strongly oppose the citizenship question. All people should be counted…everyone
One nation, under God, indivisible…we the people should be counted. I am strongly against the citizenship question being asked on the 2020 Census. It delegitimizes any status that is legal, (green card holders/permanent residents, people on student visas, people with work permits, and legal asylum seekers) and is dehumanizing. It will also discredit the United States Census. It may create an unscientific sampling when non-citizens may choose to not participate given the climate of fear that has become pervasive for many people. Many communities with legal non-citizens will become unrepresented because they would choose to hide themselves and not answer that question. Is this really American? I think not. And I hope not. Please, do not include the citizenship status question.
I strongly oppose the proposed addition of a question to the 2020 Census that asks people to share their citizenship status. Please do not include the proposed question.