U.S. Department of Commerce Announces Reinstatement of Citizenship Question to the 2020 Decennial Census - Note for a discussion, "E Pluribus Unum? What Keeps the United States United."

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Posted at 9:29 PM

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, March 26, 2018
Office of Public Affairs

(202) 482-4883
publicaffairs@doc.gov

Today, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced that a question on citizenship status will be reinstated to the 2020 decennial census questionnaire to help enforce the Voting Rights Act (VRA). Secretary Ross’s decision follows a request by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to add a question on citizenship status to the 2020 decennial census.

Please click HERE to view the memorandum directing the Census Bureau to reinstate a question on citizenship to the 2020 decennial census.

The citizenship question will be the same as the one that is asked on the yearly American Community Survey (ACS). Citizenship questions have also been included on prior decennial censuses. Between 1820 and 1950, almost every decennial census asked a question on citizenship in some form. Today, surveys of sample populations, such as the Current Population Survey and the ACS, continue to ask a question on citizenship.

On December 12, 2017, DOJ requested that the Census Bureau reinstate a citizenship question on the decennial census to provide census block level citizenship voting age population (CVAP) data that is not currently available from government surveys. DOJ and the courts use CVAP data for the enforcement of Section 2 of the VRA, which protects minority voting rights.

Having citizenship data at the census block level will permit more effective enforcement of the VRA, and Secretary Ross determined that obtaining complete and accurate information to meet this legitimate government purpose outweighed the limited potential adverse impacts.

Congress delegated to the Secretary of Commerce the authority to determine questions to be asked on the decennial census. The Census Act requires the list of decennial census questions be submitted to Congress no later than March 31, 2018.

Following receipt of the DOJ request, the Department of Commerce immediately initiated a comprehensive review process led by the Census Bureau, prioritizing the goal of obtaining complete and accurate data.

After a thorough review of the legal, program, and policy considerations, as well as numerous discussions with Census Bureau leadership, Members of Congress, and interested stakeholders, Secretary Ross has determined that reinstatement of a citizenship question on the 2020 decennial census questionnaire is necessary to provide complete and accurate census block level data.

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image from

Nicole Goodkind, "Trump Census Citizenship Question Could Cost Texas Billions of Dollars," Newsweek

President Donald Trump won Republican-friendly Texas by nine points in 2016, securing his path to the White House and the GOP's hold over Washington. But now this ruby red state, with its mélange of arid landscapes, oversized steaks and cosmopolitan cities brimming with people from around the world, could lose representation in Congress and billions of federal dollars because of a Trump administration decision to add a question about citizenship status to the U.S. census in 2020.

The change, instated by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross Monday night, would bring back a question last seen in the 1950s. Ross claims the citizenship question will be used to increase data and prevent voter discrimination. But detractors argue the shift is intended to scare immigrants and prevent them from participating, and it's the voters in Texas, many of whom backed Trump, who could be among the hardest hit.

Once the new federal survey lands, Texas, a state that already exceeds the national average for low census response scores, could face new obstacles in accurately representing its population, a figure that determines Congressional representation and federal funding. A vocal group of bipartisan critics say that questions about citizenship would dissuade a large percentage of legal and undocumented Texas residents from answering the census, which is used to calculate the state's official population. There are nearly 5 million immigrants living in Texas, and more than half of them are undocumented or live with someone who is.

An undercount of Texas’s immigrant population could lead to underrepresentation in Congress, less federal funding for citizens still recovering from Hurricane Harvey and fewer Congressional districts, which could stymie the so-called blue wave of Democrats winning office in the typically Republican state.