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by Paul R. Hollrah, Lincoln Heritage Institute Trustee
Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution provides for a national census every ten years for the purpose of determining representation in Congress. And although it is not a simple matter to count noses in a nation of more than 300 million people, as government and society have grown more and more complex in the past 220 years, census figures have come to be used for purposes far beyond determining congressional representation.
As the Brookings Institution has described the uses of census data, “Every year, the data are used to allocate billions of federal dollars. And every day, thousands of business and government decisions – such as where to open new stores, where to build homes and schools – depend on these data. To an extent far greater than commonly understood, the functioning of our society relies on the accuracy, down to the neighborhood level, of census population statistics.”
Yes, state and local officials are anxious to have every resident, legal and illegal, counted in the census. The greater the population, the more representation in Congress. The more people, the more federal dollars flowing to their state and to their local communities. But there’s a problem. Experience has shown that there are a great many people in our country, such as welfare cheats – those who’ve found a way to draw more than one government check – who do not wish to be found and/or counted. Now we must add to that at least 12 million illegal aliens who are just as anxious to remain anonymous.
In terms of data collection, the overall plan for the 2010 census appears to be as simple and straightforward as the mind of man and available technology can produce. The weak link in the process, as always, is the willingness of many of those being counted to cooperate with those doing the counting.
According to the current plan, the Census Bureau will mail a short form questionnaire to every known household during the month of March 2010 (the long form sent to one-in-six households in 1990 and 2000 has been abandoned).
The head of each household will be asked to provide data on all persons – including persons of all ages, races, and ethnic groups, citizens and non-citizens, legal and illegal – who are residents of the household as of April 1, 2010. If questionnaires are not returned by a certain date, a second mailing will be made to the residence. And if there is no response to the second mailing a census-taker, armed with a badge and a hand-held mobile computing device, an HTC GPS-enabled smartphone, will be sent to the residence to obtain the necessary information and to establish, via satellite, the exact location of the residence.
However, in an August 16, 2007, story, the Associated Press reports that, “The Census Bureau wants immigration agents to suspend enforcement raids during the 2010 census so the government can better count illegal immigrants.” Census officials worry that immigration enforcement raids during the census period “would make an already distrustful group even less likely to cooperate with government workers who are supposed to include them.”
An ICE spokeswoman declined to confirm whether or not such raids would be halted, saying, “If we were, we wouldn’t talk about it.”
Congressional reaction can be expected to divide along party lines, with Democrats favoring a suspension of immigration enforcement and Republicans opposing. As Democrats see it, if they can win a measure of goodwill among the 12-20 million illegals now in the country, and should the day arrive when they control both the Congress and the White House and a Democrat president grants a blanket amnesty, voting rights, and legal residency, those 12 million illegals could produce eighteen or more additional Democratic seats in Congress.
On the Republican side, Congresswoman Candice Miller (Mich.) has introduced a constitutional amendment that would apportion congressional seats based only on the number of U.S. citizens in each state.
When asked her opinion of the suspension of enforcement raids, Miller said, “It’s nuts! I don’t know what country the Census Bureau is living in. I can tell them the American people have grown sick and tired of their immigration laws not being enforced. They are not going to tolerate enforcement being suspended for any amount of time.”
So the battle lines are drawn and it remains only for the Bush Administration to settle the inter-agency dispute between the Census Bureau and Immigration & Customs Enforcement. And if the president comes down on the wrong side of this issue his support among Republicans will dwindle to near zero.
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