On September 30, The New York Times published an opinion piece written by William Frey, a demographer, professor, and fellow at the Brookings Institution, about the Trump Administration’s efforts to include a citizenship question on the 2020 Census. CHN has opposed these efforts from the beginning. We worked with other organizations to spread the word, which resulted in more than 250,000 comments submitted to the Department of Commerce in opposition to the question. The piece by Mr. Frey, excerpted below, shows how a citizenship question will not only hurt non-citizens, but will have long-term negative consequences for the U.S. as a whole.
Here’s how Mr. Frey’s piece begins:

“Since the early days of his campaign, from his proposal to build a wall along the Mexican border to his discredited committee on voter fraud, President Trump has declared war on America’s changing demography. His administration has followed through on that strategy with a proposal to add a question to the 2020 census asking about citizenship. If the question remains on the form, millions of households, particularly Hispanic and Asian-American, could skip the census, leading to an overrepresentation of white Americans during this once-a-decade count.

“Six lawsuits seeking to remove the proposed question are moving through the federal courts, with the first trial likely to take place this fall.

“If it is added to the census form, the citizenship question will distort our understanding of who resides in the country. What this selective underenumeration will not do is make America’s growing racial minority populations disappear. The losers from this undercount include members of Mr. Trump’s older white base, who will suffer from lost investments in a younger generation, whose successes and contributions to the economy will be necessary to keep America great.”

Click here

for the full piece.