Citizenship and the Census

In March 2018, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that it would include a question on the 2020 decennial Census to determine the citizenship status of the U.S. population. The article “Citizenship and the Census” discusses the importance of the Census, the methodology behind the development of new or modified census questions, and the effect that a citizenship question may have on the ability to accurately count the population of the United States. The Census is a constitutionally mandated tool to determine the allocation of representation and taxation. Therefore, if Census data is skewed, valuable political decisions and funding would be unfairly altered. According to the author, including a question about immigration status may cause many individuals to provide inaccurate responses or refuse to respond entirely, particularly in a political climate in which immigrant communities harbor deep fears of government officials. The author also argues that the decision to include a question regarding citizenship without ample research on response rates marks a substantial departure from standard operating procedure for the Census Bureau and could have far-reaching negative effects. One of these effects would be to hamper enforcement of violations under the Voting Rights Act if there is a substantial undercount of minority voters. In fact, based on court filings on this issue, the author suggests the motivations behind this proposed change may be more insidious: “a desire to fundamentally rewrite the terms of American representation.” For all these reasons, the author concludes that adding such a question is “both unnecessary and counterproductive” to the main goals of the Census. (Mia Fasano for The Immigrant Learning Center's Public Education Institute)

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