By CASEY TOLAN | [email protected] and TATIANA SANCHEZ | [email protected] | Bay Area News Group
The 2020 U.S. Census will ask participants about their citizenship status, the Trump Administration announced late Monday, prompting a lawsuit from California officials and worries that the question would lead to a major undercount of Golden State residents.
In an eight-page memo, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the Justice Department asked for a citizenship question to be included in the 2020 Census to better enforce the Voting Rights Act and to prevent racial discrimination in voting.
The decision immediately sparked outrage among Democrats and immigrant advocates, who fear the controversial question will deter many immigrants from participating. If the census undercounts California residents, it could have far-reaching impacts, with a potential reduction in federal resources for the state and fewer seats in Congress.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra on Tuesday said he will sue the administration over the decision. “Including the question is not just a bad idea — its illegal,” he wrote in an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle, arguing that the Constitution required the federal government to make an accurate count of citizen and noncitizen population.
The census is the latest front in the ongoing legal battle between California and the Trump administration. The state has filed more than two dozen lawsuits against the federal government over everything from environmental regulations to health care policy, and the Justice Department is suing California over its laws protecting undocumented immigrants.
The last time all U.S. residents were asked about their citizenship was in 1950, when census respondents were asked, “If foreign born, is the person naturalized?”
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But supporters of the Trump administration point out that less sweeping surveys like the American Community Survey have continued to ask about citizenship in recent years.
The most long-term impact of a California undercount would be the states representation in Congress. Every 10 years, the number of representatives per state is adjusted based on census results, taking into account the states total population, including undocumented people. If the census counts fewer Californians, it could mean the state would get fewer than its current 53 House of Representatives members starting in the 2022 elections.
Former Census Bureau directors of both parties have warned that a citizenship question is unnecessary and could lead to a “tremendous risk” of an undercount.
Cenus Bureau staff have also publicly warned about the impact of a citizenship question. In a memo written by the bureau last year, researchers noted a “new phenomenon” in which fear among many respondents, particularly immigrants, “increased markedly” in the previous year. In one case, a Spanish-speaking staffer recounted seeing a Latino family move out of a mobile home after she tried interviewing them.
California leaders blasted the decision as politically motivated.
“This detrimental change will inject fear and distrust into vulnerable communities, and cause traditionally undercounted communities to be even further under-represented,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein said the question would impact U.S. citizens who live in households with undocumented relatives. “The census should not be a political football, used to depress responses from immigrant communities and target states like California,” she said.
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