Citizenship Question on Census Only Helps GOP

FEATURING YATZIRI TOVAR – New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in early April filed a lawsuit against the government in federal court on behalf of his state over a citizenship question to be included on the 2020 Census. New York joins California and over a dozen other states that are suing the federal government over the Census question. The Trump administration has claimed it wants an accurate count of citizens to help enforce the Voting Rights Act, even though voter fraud is a virtually non-existent threat.

What immigrant-heavy states like New York and California worry is that people with immigrant background or undocumented residents will not fill out the Census thereby resulting an undercount of state populations which could lead to fewer federal funds and even possibly fewer Congressional Representatives in the House.

The fear of filling out citizenship information among immigrants is valid. During World War II, Census data was illegally used to identify Americans of Japanese origin in order to round them up and detain them.

For more information visit www.maketheroadny.org.

Yatziri Tovar, Media Specialist with Make the Road NY.