Capitol Alert
Trump’s census order could strike 2 million California immigrants from 2020 count
California Democrats vowed to fight a policy change from the Trump administration that would exclude undocumented immigrants from the 2020 census, potentially depriving the state of the federal funding and political power that is tied the decennial count.
California, home to an estimated 2 million undocumented immigrants, has a lot to lose if the Trump administration carries out the policy.
In response to the memo, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the action to exclude undocumented immigrants in the census count was rooted in “racism and xenophobia.”
“In California, we will not back down from our historic work to achieve a fair and accurate Census count,” he said in a statement. “To all Californians, including members of our immigrant communities, know that this is your home, and it is your right to be counted here.”
The memo comes nearly a year after The Supreme Court struck down the Trump administration’s argument to add a citizenship question to the U.S. census. California leaders fought that policy, too, arguing it would cause undocumented people to fear the census and not participate in it.
“President Trump already lost in the Supreme Court trying to sabotage a complete and accurate census count. This latest attempt is even more flawed and transparent,” said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.
The Trump administration in a memorandum announcing the policy argues that the Constitution does not define which persons must be included in the apportionment base and that it is up to the discretion of the executive branch to determine who qualifies as an inhabitant.
The administration says they should not be counted in the census that determines how many congressional seats each state receives. California has 53 seats in Congress and demographers anticipate that the state will lose one after the census.
“Many of these aliens entered the country illegally in the first place. Increasing congressional representation based on the presence of aliens who are not in a lawful immigration status would also create perverse incentives encouraging violations of Federal law,” according to the memorandum. “States adopting policies that encourage illegal aliens to enter this country and that hobble Federal efforts to enforce the immigration laws passed by the Congress should not be rewarded with greater representation in the House of Representatives.”
California is home to five of the 20 metropolitan areas with the largest undocumented immigrant population including Los Angeles, Riverside-San Bernardino, San Francisco, San Diego and San Jose.
Immigrant advocates say they plan to continue census outreach.
Focused on increasing Latino participation in the census count, Samuel Molina, California state director of Mi Familia Vota, said the national civic engagement organization had already been educating community members that the census did not include a citizenship question.
Molina said the announcement doesn’t deter them from their goal of obtaining an accurate census count. He called the policy order a “scare tactic,” as it is not clear how an individual’s immigration status would be verified.
“Two million people not getting counted in the census is enough to just lose a congressional seat which is an electoral vote ... which is not what we want,” Molina said. “We need everyone to be adequately reflected in the census.”
Due to the coronavirus outbreak, the census count’s deadline was extended to the end of October.
Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, is confident the courts will halt the policy.
“Trump has already engaged in so many scare tactics on this issue that it is unlikely that this specific memo will do any more in that regard,” he said.
Last year, the group joined a lawsuit in a federal court against the federal government on behalf of registered Latino voters after the state of Alabama filed a lawsuit challenging the Census Bureau’s policy to include all U.S. residents, including undocumented immigrants, in census counts to apportion congressional seats and electoral college votes.
“We are already in court on this issue, because we anticipated that this administration would do something as lawless as this,” Saenz said.
Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, said she does not expect the state to comply with the policy order.
“We have told immigrants their status will not be used against them, and that includes being used against them to deprive them of representation,” said Gonzalez, chairwoman of the California Latino Legislative Caucus.
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