Michelle Chen is a contributing writer at The Nation, a contributing editor at Dissent and a co-producer of the “Belabored” podcast and Asia Pacific Forum on WBAI FM.
Posted on 03/30/2018 6:18:06 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
The purpose of an accurate census count is to help the government understand the people for whom it is responsible — full stop. A fully inclusive census is vital for informing policy-making, whether determining how many roadways are required for a region’s population, monitoring local public health trends or ensuring our tax dollars are fairly allocated to school districts.
Trump’s move to add a citizenship question to the census follows months of intense opposition across Washington and civil society. Asking about citizenship status (a question that federal authorities have deliberately left off the census since 1950) risks alienating many prospective respondents and depressing the count of our population. Despite seemingly neutral wording, under an administration that is notoriously hostile to immigrants, the question shades the otherwise banal census form with a chilling tone of “papers, please.”
Querying about citizenship would at best make the census process more chaotic and less effective; at worst, it risks validating and codifying citizenship status as threshold of social legitimacy for a growing immigrant population.
By attempting to reframe the census to fit his definition of America, Trump is stealthily molding a new political reality: A nation matching Trump’s vision of “great again” seems increasingly divided by race and borders, and less democratic for native- and foreign-born alike.
Nonetheless, the real America pushes beyond the borders of the White House’s cherry-picked Republic. The rising public resistance to the impending policy and brewing court battles show that, regardless of how they are reflected in the official survey, people will continue to voice their uncompromising demands for representation and equality before the law. Whether we exist on paper or not, we all have a right to stand and be counted.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
Michelle Chen is a contributing writer at The Nation, a contributing editor at Dissent and a co-producer of the “Belabored” podcast and Asia Pacific Forum on WBAI FM.
Dear Moron
The primary purpose of the Census is to determine poltical representation. WHY, unless you are deliberately trying to foster fraud, would you count anyone BUT Citizens?
Or, if you are going to count everybody (a reasonable reading of the constitution) then separating out non-Citizens (like Bill Clinton did also) is essential to maintain electoral integrity. The only reason not to determine citizenship in the census is so they can count illegals as citizens.
Yet another foreign invader trying to usurp our sovereignty.
Ms. Chen:
The government stopped asking for legal immigrants to count in the 1950’s, but a LOT has changed since then.
California is badly out of synch with the rest of the country. There are MILLIONS of illegals now in California.
This is badly needed. Thanks for your opinion, but now please go away.
Thanks.
“Papers please” is so last century — and is always brought up by the people who want you “chipped.”
Is that Camera Hoggs mom?
The census is to determine Representation in the House. Asking about citizenship will help in apportioning Government services to CITIZENS WHO ARE PAYING TAXES. I do not believe the Constitution says that we have to pay for people who broke the Law while coming into the USA. And hard working Americans are FED UP with paying for those who just want to sponge off those hard working Americans.
“Trump wants to reframe the census to fit his definition of America, not protect Americans”
Because Michelle Chen’s revisionist, counter-intuitive definition of “American” is the manifest, unquestionable Truth, and the vernacular, traditional, popular definition is Falsehood. I wonder if she believes her own drivel.
I will point this out...if you take the number of non-Americans in the country at 22-million (often suggested), and figure that three-quarters of this group are in California, NY, and Florida (my humble guess), then the question weighs greatly upon the 2024 Presidential election and the Electoral College.
You can figure lesser populations counted, and the three states combined would lose at least nine Electoral votes, and those nine votes likely shift to red states (mostly southern states).
This would also reshape a significant number of states and the district-drawing scheme, and put the Supreme Court into a full-time job of trying to figure ‘fair’ district drawings, or not.
The United States of America belongs to the citizens.
Citizens of other countries who broke into ours do not belong here.
I’ve always wondered how illegal aliens had as much political power as they have. Now I know. I never thought about the allocation of congressional seats in their relation to the number of illegals counted in the census.
What a Moroon. States with high levels of non-citizens then “steal” representation from the other state with low levels of non-citizens. Totally unfair.
pablum
Sorry Michelle #2 - Barack Obama is the one who actually did reframe “the census to fit his definition of America, not protect Americans”.
The citizenship question was on the census form until it was eliminated by Barack on the 2010 census form.
Obama and the democrats did not want Americans to know the magnitude of the foreign invasion of America that was underway.
President Trump is trying to repair the widespread damage Obama has done to the nation.
A part of that includes restoring the census inquiry regarding citizenship.
Excuse me?
Perhaps an amendment to only count people legally eligible to vote would make more sense?
After all, these are the people who have direct representation.
We can depend on them to vote in ways that support them, their dependents, and neighbors who do not have the franchise, can’t we? No two year-old has direct representation now, if you count them to determine voter representation how does that work, exactly?
She needs to go back. She’s not interested in being an American.
I guess that comes from being the "universal nation."
I think she's an insectiod/mantid...
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