Demand Progress

Jeff Sessions’ DOJ wants the 2020 census to ask a question about citizenship status to every single person living in the United States.¹

First thing first, this is completely unprecedented. It’s a shameless attempt to intimidate immigrant communities and rig GOP control of Congress.

Tell the Census Bureau not to bend to Jeff Sessions: don’t add a citizenship status question to the U.S. census.

The mission of the census is to get an accurate headcount of all people living in the U.S., regardless of immigration status. The census determines how much federal money gets spent where on crucial things like infrastructure and disaster relief, just to name a few.

Census officials are already noticing that a growing number of people are fearful of responding to census survey while Trump is in the White House.² Given the Muslim Ban, increased ICE raids, the DACA fight in Congress, and Jeff Sessions leading the Justice Department, who can blame them?

Tell the Census Bureau not to add a citizenship status question to the 2020 census.

Jeff Sessions doesn’t just want to instill fear in immigrant families, he’s got an ugly political reason for this too. The census determines how many House congressional districts are in each state.

Politicizing the 2020 census could help anti-immigrant GOP candidates rig control of Congress for the next 10 years.

Adding a citizenship status question to the census would push millions of people from vulnerable communities to not even fill out the census. That will throw off the balance of power in Congress dramatically, shifting power from more diverse and Latino areas to whiter, more conservative districts that regularly elect Republicans. It’s basically back-door gerrymandering.

Tell the Census Bureau to count heads, not green cards: Don’t add a citizenship status question to the U.S. census.

Sources:
1. New York Times, “Critics Say Questions About Citizenship Could Wreck Chances for an Accurate Census,” January 2, 2017.
2. Ibid.