Pro & Con: Should undocumented aliens be counted in the 2010 census?

Yes. Undercounting deprives communities of federal money and services

By Afton Branche

An estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants live in the United States today, with a growing number settling in Southeastern cities and states like Georgia. Since the 2000 census, Georgia’s undocumented population has grown from 250,000 to 475,000, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. That’s 90 percent growth in the past decade.

Census offices are opening up across the country to ensure an accurate population count in 2010, but households with undocumented immigrants are among the least likely to report income and residence information. Federal surveillance tactics have made residents more reluctant to share personal information with government agencies. In an environment of suspicion, many undocumented immigrants fear that personal information recorded in the census will be used against them. As a result, many will be especially hesitant to fill out the questionnaire. We cannot let this happen.

As we recover from this recession, census data will inform the allocation of billions of federal dollars to states, counties and cities during the next 10 years. In 2007, income and demographic data from the last census was used to allocate $370 billion in domestic assistance programs to state and local governments. Population also drives the distribution of competitive state grants to local governments, so regions with larger populations receive more funding for housing, health care, transit, schools and other public services.

Census data even determine many crucial decisions on a neighborhood level: everything from where to route buses to where to dig sewer lines, plan parks and pick up garbage.

The role of a full census count is especially palpable in public education. If a school district has incomplete data on children in undocumented families, it may base decisions to fire teachers or close schools on an artificially low estimate of students. The result is overcrowded, understaffed classrooms that hurt everyone, regardless of citizenship.

Better data also can legitimize the need for better English language and vocational programs so that more U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants acquire skills to contribute economically and pay taxes.

And then there are the innumerable investors who will use census figures to maximize scarce resources and create new businesses in places like Georgia where immigration is boosting the population and spurring economic demand. For example, large retailers like Target and Home Depot scope out locations with specific population densities before opening new stores. If they analyze incomplete data on undocumented immigrants, they will develop demographic profiles that underestimate the economic potential of entire communities. To miss undocumented immigrants is to miss vital market information.

As workers, taxpayers, business owners and homeowners, undocumented immigrants are an important part of the economic fabric of our country and should be counted as such. In recent years, flawed immigration policies have left them at the margins of the labor market and in the shadows of where they work and live. A full census count would be a major step toward integrating undocumented residents into our society.

Undercounting all these residents would be a disastrous outcome far too costly to allow.

A PricewaterhouseCoopers study estimates that 122,980 people went uncounted in Georgia during the 2000 census, depriving Georgia of a whopping $208.8 million in federal funding through 2012, with a loss of $1,697 per uncounted person. Demographers agree that the undercount rate for undocumented residents is 10-15 percent. In Georgia, that means 47,500 to 71,250 undocumented residents may go uncounted in 2010.

Elected officials, advocates and average citizens must work together to intensify their outreach to their undocumented neighbors. Law enforcement and business leaders can play an equally pivotal role in reassuring this immigrant population that they will not be penalized for coming forward.

Afton Branche is an immigration analyst at the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy in New York.

No. Counting aliens shifts power in Congress, benefits Democrats

By Phil Kent

The bedrock principle that every voter has an equal voice is outrageously undermined if the U.S. Census Bureau counts everyone physically.

Elizabeth Grieco, chief of the census’ immigration statistics staff, lamely explains that the 2010 census form being used for the nationwide head count does not ask about citizenship because “Congress has not asked us to do that.”

Counting millions of illegal immigrants will unquestionably and unconstitutionally increase the number of U.S. House of Representatives members in some states and rob other states of their rightful representation.

Remember, congressional districts are drawn by state legislatures and must have an approximately equal number of people living in every district.

Also, aside from trying to count in order to adjust congressional districts every 10 years, an accurate tally of citizens in all states also impacts the makeup of the Electoral College — the body that actually elects a president.

Constitutional law professor John Baker of Louisiana State University emphasizes that the first Census Act in 1790 provided that “inhabitants” would be counted.

The professor notes that “inhabitant” was a term with a well-defined meaning that encompassed, as the Oxford English Dictionary expressed it, one who is ‘a bona fide member of a state, subject to all the requisitions of its laws, and entitled to all the privileges which they confer.’ ”

Indeed, since the beginning of our republic until the 20th century, census forms questioned citizenship or permanent resident status, e.g. “what state or foreign country were you born in?”

Because every census since 1980 has not distinguished between citizens, legal residents and those who illegally snuck across our borders, apportionment for U.S. House seats has become increasingly problematic.

According to 2007 Census Bureau data, states with a significant gain in net population by including noncitizens are Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, New York and Texas.

Baker and Louisiana demographer Elliott Stonecipher estimate that, with about 6 million illegal aliens included, liberal Democrat-dominated California would have a whopping 57 House members in a newly reapportioned Congress.

If the illegal aliens weren’t included, California would only have 48. Of course, when one state gains, others lose — and most would be Republican-leaning.

In 1964 the U.S. Supreme Court in Wesberry v. Sanders ruled: “The House of Representatives, the [Constitutional] Convention agreed, was to represent the people as individuals and on a basis of complete equality for each voter.”

It ruled that Georgia had violated the equal vote principle because its House districts did not contain roughly the same number of voting citizens.

Justice Hugo Black declared for the majority that “one man’s vote in a congressional election is to be worth as much as another’s.”

That principle is being shamelessly violated in next year’s census. The Democrat-controlled Congress has abdicated its constitutional responsibility by giving a wink and a nod to the influx of illegal immigrants “concentrating the power” of voters in California, Texas and a few other states where Democrats seek demographic political advantage over Republicans.