Nothing scares a Dem more than the truth. Knowing the actual number of citizens is a powerful tool.
Wonder how many seats CA will lose, which is what this is all about
The Dems know if we only count American citizens they will lose seats and money. I would wager that upwards to millions of votes in California in 2016 were from illegals.
So much so that Hillary could not claim to have won the popular vote.
The concern democrats have is that just knowing the question is on the form will cause illegals to avoid the census takers and will therefore not be counted.
If the citizen question is on the form it won’t affect the census count as long as the residents, illegal or legal, fill out the form or a census worker fills it out for them.
The census has no authority to act on the information if a person self identifies as an illegal.
And the census will not share specific identity information with Homeland Security or ICE or any other federal agency.
The only way they share information is in ways that protects the identity and personal information of those who have been counted.
Every census employee is required by to sign an agreement that they will keep all personal information confidential.
As an example the census might publish data reporting that a certain percentage of residents in an area self identified as non-citizens.
But there will be no specifics as to who did or did not provide personal information.
The also are afraid that the illegals list (from census) will get matched against voting polls wit addresses, which should tell us something. Of course we know none of them vote! If illegals tended to vote Republican, Democrats would have tanks sitting on the border.