2020 census worries Indian Americans

WASHINGTON, DC — Indian Americans face a severe undercount in the 2020 Census, noted Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, during a national press call on April 5.

The call brought together several civil rights leaders who examined the impact of chronic underfunding and a new, untested question on citizenship to the accuracy of the 2020 Census count. The panelists concluded that the citizenship question would deter the immigrant community from responding.

India is the home country for the fastest-growing population of undocumented Americans; almost half a million Indian Americans–one out of every six–lack requisite immigration documents, according to data culled from 2016 Department of Homeland Security statistics.

Gupta, who served in the Justice Department’s civil rights division during the Obama administration, noted that many Indian Americans live in “mixed status” households, in which certain family members may be citizens whereas others are undocumented. Such households would be reluctant to respond to the Census survey, she said.

“The level of distrust is already very high; it is pitched by the anti-immigrant rhetoric of this administration,” said Gupta.

“The climate of fear created by the Trump administration will cause participation rates to plummet,” she asserted.

“Inclusion in the Census is very important to the functioning of our democracy,” said Gupta, underscoring the point that both federal dollars and representation in government are determined by Census data.

She feared that insufficient federal resources would be allocated to minority communities based on an inaccurate Census count, and added that mayors around the country–of both parties–are concerned about potential cuts in federal revenue due to inaccuracies in Census data.

Gupta also noted that President Donald Trump’s request of $3.8 billion in this year’s budget to fund the 2020 Census is about $933 million short of the revenue needed.

California state Attorney General Xavier Becerra immediately filed a lawsuit. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman led a coalition of 18 attorneys general and six cities and the bipartisan US Conference of Mayors to file a lawsuit on April 2 which would block the administration from adding the citizenship question to the 2020 form.

Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League, added that the new decision to count incarcerated people in the counties in which they are jailed, rather than their homes, would also lead to inaccurate data. He characterized an undercount of a specific community as racial discrimination.

Morial served as Chair of the 2010 Census Advisory Committee.