By Brendan O’Brien
(Reuters) – A question about citizenship status will be included on the 2020 Census to help enforce the Voting Rights Act, federal officials said on Monday, but California sued to block the move arguing that it would discourage immigrants from participating.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross decided to add the question to the count after a Department of Justice request based on the desire for better enforcement of the voting law, the U.S. Department of Commerce said in a statement.
“Secretary Ross determined that obtaining complete and accurate information to meet this legitimate government purpose outweighed the limited potential adverse impacts,” it said.
The census, which is mandated under the U.S. Constitution and takes place every 10 years, counts every resident in the United States. It is used to determine the allocation to states of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and to distribute billions of dollars in federal funds to local communities.
While the census is used for a lot of things, it’s primary Constitutional function is to allocate representation for the citizens in the House and Senate. Illegal aliens are not citizens. They are not legally permitted to vote, and they should not have representation in a country they live illegally. By counting illegal aliens in the census, it shifts more representatives, and thus more power, to regions that are not entitled to it.
For example, Milwaukee and Albuquerque are about the same size in population. But if 30% of the population of Albuquerque are non-citizens, why should they get more representation in Congress (not to mention the state houses) than the citizens in Milwaukee? They shouldn’t.
If we had good border security, trying to tease out the number of illegals would be moot. But since we have allowed a massive illegal population to inhabit our nation, we need to take steps to ensure that our government is structured to represent citizens. If not, then what does citizenship really mean?
The question has everything to do with illegals getting representation in Washington and the money funneled back to California to pay for benefits.
Estimated cost figures are all over the map but all are in the area of tens of billions of dollars annually over any estimated contributions. Not surprisingly, the citizens of California oppose this magnet for illegal aliens, even passing Prop 187 in 1994. What the people of California voted for were:
Banning public and secondary school education for illegal aliens
Non-emergency health care for illegal aliens
Social welfare services for illegal aliens
Mandate that law enforcement officers seek to verify the legal status of all arrestees
Sadly, a Jimmy Carter appointed judge decided she did not care about the will of the people and blocked implementation of the law. When the people oppose the gravy train for illegal aliens but their elected officials won’t stop, one can only wonder how (or who) votes these clowns in to office. Maybe it’s the water.
The citizenship question has been asked in every census with the exception of 1960 and 2010.
The 1960 did ask, “Where was this person born?”
In 1970 the Census Bureau began sending out two different forms. The long form (which 1 in 6 households received) included the citizenship question.
In 2010 the Census Bureau ended the use of the long form, and instead relied on 5 years of data collected through the annual American Community Survey.
The ACS, which began development in the early 1990’s, like the census, is another mandatory G’vment intrusion sent to roughly 3.5 million households every year. It includes the citizenship question.
Leftist who are claiming that the question is unconstitutional have no standing, as 99% of the questions asked on the census or ACS forms are not, nor ever have been, constitutionally mandated.