Census query blocked, Trump fi ghts on
BY ALEJANDRA
O’CONNELL-DOMENECH
Outside of City Hall Park, a buzzing
crowd recently celebrated
the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision
to block the citizenship question
from the 2020 Census.
At the June 27 rally, sign-waving
members and allies of the coalition
group New York Counts 2020, listened
to local politicians, including New
York Attorney General Letitia James,
nonprofi t leaders like Stephen Choi,
executive director of the New York Immigration
Coalition, and city leaders,
like Julie Menin, the Census director
for New York City, speak to how the
decision was a victory for democracy
and the rule of law.
“Today the Supreme Court upheld
what each and every single one of us here
knows, that every single person in this
country, in this state, in this city, deserves
to be counted, deserves to be represented
and not silenced,” said Murad Awadeh,
vice president of advocacy of the New
York Immigration Coalition. An eruption
of cheers followed his remarks.
Critics of the citizenship question say
that it will deter noncitizens from fi lling
out the form and thus skew Census
results in favor of Republicans. According
to Menin, what is at stake for New
York by adding the question is $700
million worth of federal funding for
state programs, like public education,
public housing and Medicaid. Menin
also stressed that an undercount in
New York could mean the loss of two
congressional seats.
In March 2018, Commerce Secretary
Wilbur Ross approved plans to add the
question, “Is this person a citizen of
the United States?” to the 2020 Census
against the recommendation of the
Census Bureau. The question has not
been asked on a U.S. Census since
1950. In April of last year, New York
State led a group of 18 states, 10 cities
and four counties and the U.S Conference
of Mayors in a lawsuit against the
Commerce Department and the Census
Bureau to try to remove the citizenship
question from the 2020 Census.
Later that month, several other states
fi led similar lawsuits.
The Supreme Court’s June 27 decision
stated that the Trump administration’s
Department of Commerce could
not add the citizenship question to the
Census form because the reason it later
gave for doing so was a lie, according to
Vox. The ruling, however, allowed for
the Trump administration to present
a more legitimate reason for including
the question.
Trump, though, was under a time
crunch since the the Census Bureau only
had until June 30 to fi nalize the Census
form. On July 2, Ross announced
that the Commerce Department would
print the Census form without the
Julie Menin, the Census director for New York, spoke at the rally outside of City Hall Park.
A group of young activists attended the Census 2020 rally outside of City Hall Park.
citizenship question. But the next day,
Trump tweeted otherwise and considered
using an executive order arguing a
constitutional need to add the question,
according to the Washington Post.
Although speakers at the rally expressed
confi dence that the citizenship
question would remain off of the Census
form, they worried about another
hurdle: response rate.
According to Menin, New York State
had a 61.9 percent self-response rate to
the Census questionnaire while the national
response rate was 74 percent.
According to Menin, part of the reason
New York’s response rate was so
low was because a lack of community
education about the importance of the
census. This time around, that will not
be the case, according to Menin. Her
PHOTO BY TEQUILA MINSKY
PHOTO BY TEQUILA MINSKY
offi ce plans on going to community
board meetings, neighborhood meetings
and houses of worship and “every
pocket of the city” to speak about what
is at stake with an undercount.
“Every neighborhood can and must
do better,” said Menin. ” It is the single
most important step one can take to
ensure that their respected community
gets the funding it deserves.”
14 July 11, 2019 TVG Schneps Media