BROWNSVILLE —Cameron County commissioners were scheduled to vote during today’s regular meeting on a resolution opposing the inclusion of a question about citizenship in the 2020 U.S. Census.
County Judge Eddie Treviño Jr. said county leaders deemed the resolution necessary in light of the negative potential impact the census question could have, and that the county needed to take a public stand.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced last month that the citizenship question would be added to the census in response to a request from the Department of Justice, which characterized the move as necessary to enforce the Voting Rights Act. The Commerce Department oversees the Census Bureau, which conducts a census every 10 years as dictated by the Constitution.
According to the non-partisan, non-profit Pew Research Center, it would be the first time since 1950 that every U.S. resident is asked about citizenship. Each decennial census from 1890 to 1950 included a citizenship question, as did census surveys in 1820, 1830 and 1870. The question did not appear on the 1960 census. Since then, the question has been asked only of a sample of households, either on the long-form census or the American Community Survey, which replaced the long-form in 2010, according to PRC.
Ross’s announcement was met with criticism that the citizenship question would discourage minority participation in the census. California and New York have filed suit against the Trump administration over the change in the census, which Treviño said would only serve to worsen the chronic undercounting of Cameron County’s population.
“We know that for decades we’ve been undercounted,” he said. “This is just another attempt at using the census — especially under this administration — of weaponizing the census to count as few people as possible, especially those people of migrant or minority status. No doubt it’s intentional.”
Treviño said undercounts skew the region’s political representation as well as federal, since both are calculated according to population.
“Our districts could have been drawn in a very different way that would have given us more of a say-so at the state and federal level,” he said.
In a March 26 memo, Ross said DOJ asked for the citizenship question to help enforce protections for minority voters, including non-English speakers, under the Voting Rights Act. DOJ currently relies on data from the census bureau’s American Community Survey, which covers 2.6 percent of the population each year.
However, according to Ross, DOJ wants additional “scope, detail and certainty” that can only be possible by including the citizenship question on the full decennial census, completion and return of which is required by federal law. In the memo, Ross said the citizenship question would be last on the census in order to minimize impact on response rates.
“The citizenship data provided to DOJ will be more accurate with the question than without it, which is of greater importance than any adverse effect that may result from people violating their legal duty to respond,” he wrote.
Treviño said the citizenship question would work against the county’s efforts to encourage census participation, especially in cases of residents already reluctant to fill out a government questionnaire. He pointed out that the purpose of the census, according to the Constitution, is to count the population — period.
The California attorney general’s lawsuit echoes that notion, arguing further that if the census undercounts immigrants, the resulting incomplete population count violates the purpose laid out by the Constitution: to divide up seats in the U.S. House of Representatives based on total U.S. population.
Treviño said the county is considering joining the legal fight against the administration, while also organizing a “complete count committee” made up of governmental entities and community groups of every stripe to help ensure census participation among residents. He said he’s hopeful that legal challenges to the citizenship question will bear fruit.
“There’s still time in order to address it,” Treviño said. “Hopefully this lawsuit can (bring) some preliminary relief.”
Hidalgo County commissioners issued a proclamation against the citizenship census question on April 10.
