Media Contact: media@advancingjustice-alc.org
Statement on President Trump’s Executive Order and the 2020 Census
President Trump today announced that his Administration would give up its attempts to add an unnecessary, untested citizenship question to the 2020 Census. This is unequivocally a win for our communities and for a fair census.
We are pleased that after months of legal wrangling and consistent court decisions ruling against the inclusion of a citizenship question, the Administration is finally giving up on this transparent attempt to create fear and confusion among our communities. A citizenship question would have led to an inaccurate count in communities with high immigrant populations, robbing those communities of their fair share of federal resources and representation.
The President also announced that the Administration will attempt to compile citizenship data through existing government administrative records, something the Census Bureau indicated its intention to do months ago. The Census Bureau regularly collects administrative data from other government agencies to further a complete count. Federal law makes absolutely clear that the Census Bureau cannot share individual census responses with law enforcement or immigration authorities and that does not change with today’s announcement.
Although there will not be a question about citizenship on the 2020 Census, the threat of an undercount is not over. Distrust of the census has already been sowed.
As a result, our focus now will be the same as it was before. We will coordinate a robust statewide effort to educate Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities about the importance of the 2020 Census and motivate them to participate. We will prepare community-based organizations on how to talk to their community members about all the ways that census participation benefits all of us and will provide legal, technical, and policy support wherever needed. And when Census Day comes we will ensure community members are ready and willing to complete their census forms.
There’s a lot at stake here: as home to the largest immigrant community in the nation, California could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds and a seat in the House of Representatives. In 1990, an undercount of 2.74% in California resulted in California gaining one fewer seat in Congress than it was entitled to and an estimated loss of over $200 million of federal funds in each single fiscal year. We cannot let that happen again.
Please contact us if you are interested in learning more about what role you can play in ensuring that our communities get counted.
About Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus
Asian Law Caucus (ALC) was founded in 1972 as the nation’s first legal and civil rights organization focusing on the needs of low-income, immigrant and underserved Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Recognizing that social, economic, political, and racial inequalities continue to exist in the United States, ALC is committed to the pursuit of equality and justice for all sectors of our society.