The Census and Citizenship, Legal and Illegal

 

 

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I don't get the problem with asking about citizenship in the census. The question was asked to everyone in every census until 1950 and then thereafter in the "long form" which was given to every 6th person until 2000. The question was stopped under President Obama.

I have checked the census forms for my grandfather in 1930 and 1940 and his answer to the citizenship question was in the negative. No problem with that. Many people are in the country legitimately who are not citizens. The Dems who are dead set against the question fear that it will inhibit people who are here illegally from responding to the question. I'm not sure why that would be since there would be no inquiry into legal status, just citizenship. They would just answer like my grandfather.

But the whole controversy brings up the issue of whether we should be counting people who are here illegally in the census in the first place. The census count is used to determine each state's number of congressional representatives whose most important task is to determine where federal funds should go and how we should be taxed to pay for them. And if states which encourage illegals and have large numbers of them have more influence in congress than those who don't I see an obvious problem with that.

Furthermore the numbers of each state's electors in the Electoral College is based primarily on the number of it's congressional representatives. This in turn means that people here illegally are essentially voting in our elections for President and Vice President.

Bottom line is that I do think it's important that we make an actual determination of the proportion of our population who are citizens. But much more critical to me is knowing the actual numbers and general whereabouts of people who are here illegally since, if they are counted, they can have a significant impact on the decisions made in our House of Representatives and Presidential election. How we could ever accomplish that task is hard to say since some are fighting tooth and nail even to prevent asking the citizenship question.