Is it a bigger threat to republican government when American citizens are hypothetically better represented, or when noncitizens in actuality dilute their representation? This is a question at the core of an emerging controversy over a seemingly trivial question the Department of Justice has urged the Census Bureau to reinstate on the 2020 Census: Are you a U.S. citizen?
Citizenship questions have appeared in the U.S. census dating back to 1820.
Even after the long-form census disappeared, a citizenship question persisted.
Does Mr. Holder fear the potentially more accurate data that including this question on the 2020 Census might provide? Is the citizenship question no less chilling in the ACS than in the census?
Holder claims inclusion of the citizenship question on the 2020 Census "Will both lower the response rate of households and threaten the accuracy of the count." But did this potential fear not exist again between 1970 and 2000, when politicians across the political spectrum, including President Bill Clinton, who appointed Holder deputy attorney general, took a far harder line on illegal immigration? I grant that during the Obama years noncitizens may not have had such trepidations with respect to the ACS, given the administration's lax enforcement of immigration law, but nevertheless, millions of noncitizens evidently responded at satisfactory rates under more enforcement-focused administrations in the past.
Lastly, Holder suggests that "Attacks on the census process go beyond politics - they represent a major assault on representative American democracy." Leave aside the hyperbole in part over a citizenship question the federal government already asks of millions of people.
Note another Holder omission here: He never once mentions that illegal or "Undocumented" immigrants are counted in the census, a fact that might make readers less sympathetic to the idea that Americans should be upset if some percentage of noncitizens refuse to respond to the census.
https://thefederalist.com/2018/03/01/left-going-gonzo-asking-citizenship-status-census/
Citizenship questions have appeared in the U.S. census dating back to 1820.
Even after the long-form census disappeared, a citizenship question persisted.
Does Mr. Holder fear the potentially more accurate data that including this question on the 2020 Census might provide? Is the citizenship question no less chilling in the ACS than in the census?
Holder claims inclusion of the citizenship question on the 2020 Census "Will both lower the response rate of households and threaten the accuracy of the count." But did this potential fear not exist again between 1970 and 2000, when politicians across the political spectrum, including President Bill Clinton, who appointed Holder deputy attorney general, took a far harder line on illegal immigration? I grant that during the Obama years noncitizens may not have had such trepidations with respect to the ACS, given the administration's lax enforcement of immigration law, but nevertheless, millions of noncitizens evidently responded at satisfactory rates under more enforcement-focused administrations in the past.
Lastly, Holder suggests that "Attacks on the census process go beyond politics - they represent a major assault on representative American democracy." Leave aside the hyperbole in part over a citizenship question the federal government already asks of millions of people.
Note another Holder omission here: He never once mentions that illegal or "Undocumented" immigrants are counted in the census, a fact that might make readers less sympathetic to the idea that Americans should be upset if some percentage of noncitizens refuse to respond to the census.
https://thefederalist.com/2018/03/01/left-going-gonzo-asking-citizenship-status-census/
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