U.S. News & World Report: Ensure Everyone Is Counted

U.S. News & World Report: Ensure Everyone Is Counted

As Americans prepare for the 2020 census, there's a movement afoot that would negatively affect the count. The Trump administration wants to ask respondents about their citizenship or legal status on the census form, a query that in the context of today's supercharged immigration debates would lead millions of people – citizens and non-citizens – to ignore the form or return it blank.

AMERICA’S FOUNDERS created the census and wrote into the Constitution a requirement that their successors count all the nation’s inhabitants every 10 years because they understood that for a truly representative democracy, we must know how many of us there are and the states in which we live.

But as Americans prepare for the 2020 census, there’s a movement afoot that would negatively affect the count. The Trump administration wants to ask respondents about their citizenship or legal status on the census form, a query that in the context of today’s supercharged immigration debates would lead millions of people – citizens and non-citizens – to ignore the form or return it blank.

Funding shortfalls already have created the possibility – maybe the likelihood – that the 2020 count will not be complete; a citizenship question would increase the number of people not counted.

The administration’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and long list of anti-immigrant policy proposals and actions have spawned a tidal wave of fear and resentment in immigrant communities. Although the law and census historical practice provides a record of maintaining the collected information confidentially, well before the notion of a citizenship question was requested, prior year surveys revealed significant apprehension among some respondents about how the administration might use information about immigrant residents. With the actual count set to start in less than 24 months, there is no time (or money) to conduct meaningful research and testing.

Census forms mailed to the general public haven’t included a citizenship question since 1950. In 1970, the question was included on the long form that went only to a sample of homes. In 2010, it was moved to the American Community Survey, a Census Bureau survey that updates census information annually, also based on a sample of households.

If the administration wants to gather citizenship information so it can better understand differences in the way citizens and non-citizens fare in the U.S. or to properly enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act – two legitimate objectives – high quality information is available from the American Community Survey. After the California Citizens Redistricting Commission used the survey’s data to draw new congressional districts in 2012, the Justice Department found that data sufficiently reliable to allow it to approve the districts as meeting requirements of the Voting Rights Act.

One key to a successful census is vigorous observance of the federal law that protects the privacy of each respondent. The law says individual census information cannot be seen or used by anyone other than census employees, who are sworn to keep the information private and use it only to compile aggregate, anonymous statistics.

Of course, even with the law’s promise of anonymity, some people remain wary of potential violations of their privacy and opt out.

Rather than drive a wedge between the Census Bureau and immigrant communities by insisting on a citizenship question, the Census Bureau should be allowed to continue building bridges to ensure a more accurate count. There’s precedent for that approach; for the 1980 census, the Census Bureau created advisory committees in minority communities which surveys indicated were more likely to be undercounted. Once trusted voices in those communities understood the system and the importance of a complete count to their groups, they effectively encouraged people to participate and there was a reduction in the estimated undercount.

In sum, the question on citizenship, now under review at the Commerce Department, would only compound concerns about privacy and drive down participation. The administration should walk away from the proposal, end its legal review and allow the Census Bureau to focus its energy and resources on meeting the mandate of our Constitution and ensure that everyone is counted.

Corrected on Jan. 30, 2018: An earlier version of Vincent Barabba’s author bio on this piece incorrectly described his affiliation with the California Citizens Redistricting Commission; he is a member of that panel.