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The Trump administration is proposing a dramatic overhaul of the once-a-decade US Census head count that could leave out millions of immigrants based on status and key racial and ethnic data, jeopardizing the allocation of resources and the country\u2019s voting map.<\/p>\n
The potential changes, announced Wednesday, would exclude undocumented immigrants, asylum seekers and anyone without permanent status. Certain demographic questions from the traditional questionnaire would also be eliminated.<\/p>\n
It echoes Trump\u2019s previous idea to add a citizenship question to the 2030 census.<\/p>\n
The US Census Bureau, in a post on the Federal Register website, argued \u201cillegal aliens (among others) should not be included in the apportionment count, as they are not true inhabitants, members of the body politic, or persons with a \u2018usual residence\u2019 in the United States due to their lack of a sufficient tie and allegiance to the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
The census also \u201cshould be colorblind and should not be distorted in any way by questions about immaterial personal characteristics, such as race,\u201d the agency said. It also is considering nixing questions related to people who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community.<\/p>\n
These changes would harm the quality of the data, said Beth Jarosz, a data researcher and vice president of the Association of Public Data Users. She called the proposals \u201cunprecedented.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot counting all of the people who reside here is actually where the real threat is,\u201d Jarosz said. \u201cIf you think about all of the ways that census data are used.\u201d<\/p>\n
Census figures are traditionally used for an \u201capportionment count\u201d to determine how many seats each state will have in the US House of Representatives. That count also determines the number of votes in the Electoral College.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can imagine if we have undercounts or if we have people counted in the wrong place,\u201d Jarosz said. \u201cThen their political power or their political representation gets diluted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Immigrants of every status have historically been counted<\/strong><\/p>\n Historically, the decennial census has not sought to conduct a full count of people by citizenship status, she added. It may come up in the Census\u2019 periodic American Community Survey.<\/p>\n Getting an accurate count of immigrants of various statuses is useful when assigning resources for public health emergencies or natural or man-made disasters.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you don\u2019t have a count of everyone who\u2019s there, you\u2019re not going to have the resources you need,\u201d Jarosz said. \u201cAnd that puts everybody at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n Why race and ethnicity census data matters<\/strong><\/p>\n Race-related questions have been on the once-a-decade census since 1790. Starting in 2000, the US census began allowing people to identify by more than one race. A 2015 Pew Research Center study found that multiracial people in the US were growing at a rate three times faster than the general population. By 2020, 33.8 million people in the US identified as being more than one race, according to the census.<\/p>\n Race and ethnicity data is essential for researchers who gauge discrimination, crime rates and wealth gaps in communities of color.<\/p>\n Collecting data for the 2030 Census with all these missing elements would be detrimental, Jarosz said.<\/p>\n \u201cThese changes are like trying to land an airplane when you are in thick fog and someone has thrown paint across the front window and your instruments are also not working,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n