Census 2020, Good Thing or Scary Thing?

Demonstrators rally outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday to protest a proposal to add a citizenship question in the 2020 Census Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images  https://www.foxnews.com/politics/supreme-court-citizenship-question-to-census

Our country experienced a milestone date in April, as we kicked off the one year out mark from the 2020 Census. It's hard to believe the last Census was taken in 2010. To say it, doesn't sound that long ago, but consider where you were nine years ago, how old you were, what you were doing. More importantly, consider technology and how different it looks today. Even nine years ago, the evolution of social media hadn't come full circle to the point it has today. Smartphones, Tablets, and iPads were just becoming known to the majority of society, but most weren't yet household "givens" at that time, as they were just beginning to gain notoriety. I know, that's hard to imagine today! 

So, now consider what canvasing an entire nation would've liked in 2010. Mind blowing, right? Because few people know, that the Census 2020 will be the first census in US history to ever be conducted, nearly 100%, online. For lack of better words, the census is going high-tech, and for communities like Albertville, this couldn't be more significant. Census numbers account for and justify a great deal of how federal funds are allocated. As you might have guessed, it all has to do with population. 

What does that mean for cities as diverse as Albertville, where a vast portion of the city's population is unaccounted for, due to fears by ethnic groups to participate in the census? 

The answer is, it couldn't be more detrimental. In 2010, the US Census calculated a population of approximately 21,000 people living in Albertville. Today, demographic studies and data collected for economic development and retail recruitment practices lead us to believe that our accurate population count is more along the lines of 30,000 plus. Why does this put us at a disadvantage? Well, the explanation is super simple if you think about it. More people = more vehicles per day on the roads, for students filling schools, more jobs needed to sustain a healthy economy and workforce, and overall, a heavier burden than has been offset by federal funds in our area, in the past.

The reason for this is has a great deal to do with Albertville's large Hispanic and Haitian population being fearful of participating in the census out of angst these statistics could, in turn, be used against them. This is actually not what these numbers are used for, but rather, they're supposed to be used to ensure that immigrant, low income, and native heavy communities proportionately receive funding based on their population. As excited as we've been with the upgrade in technology and ever census taker being equipped with iPads and computers to verify addresses with, despite our excitement over being successful, with the Census Bureau paying their temporary census takers between 20 and 30 dollars an hour plus mileage, in recruiting trusted members of our Haitian and Hispanic communities to apply to work for the census in our area to help show residents of their respective ethnicities that partaking in the census is a good thing, not a scary thing, a curve ball has been thrown. One that could drastically affect upcoming census data. The problem is, in 2020, the Census will specifically ask a very scary question for some:

"Are you a US Citizen?" 

"Some advocates accused the administration of intentionally intimidating immigrant communities, and vowed to mount a campaign to encourage people to participate, rather than shun, census takers. 'Their goal is to try to make invisible our immigrant community in the census and to create a situation in which civic engagement action, to be counted, becomes risky,' said Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. 'But we are going to make sure that our community understands that they count for the United States and should participate. We are going to fight it,' she said" (newyorktimes.com).

"A coalition of state attorneys general advised the Commerce Department last month against including the citizenship question, saying that in addition to undermining participation among immigrants, it would result in an undercount of the overall population in many areas. The state of California has already filed suit, arguing that including the question is a violation of the United States Constitution, and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman of New York announced he would lead a separate multistate legal challenge" (newyorktimes.com). 

The Department of Commerce is sticking by their guns that citizenship questions, in some form or fashion, have been included in decennial census forms many times throughout history, but weren't in 2010. They say it's vital information we need to have to better enforce the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court is currently hearing both sides of the controversy, and a decision will be made in June, before census forms are printed in July. 

I see it both ways. Do I believe this is the government's way of enforcing the VRA? Not by a long shot. Do I think they're trying to get merely in the same universe of balancing the US budget by not having to allocate a higher number of funds to areas densely populated with illegal aliens? Probably, and honestly, I get it. Where do we draw the line? For cities like Albertville, however, who cannot go back and fight an immigration problem to our city that began nearly 30 years ago, the side effects of not getting another census right could be devastating. We will watch and see how this one plays out. 

Jordan, Miriam. "If Census Asks About Citizenship, Some Already Have an Answer: No." The New York Times, March 27, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/us/census-undocumented-immigrants.html.