Why Does Trump Want An Inaccurate Census Count?
Trying to force an early end to the Census, ensuring many won’t be counted is a power play aimed at making it seem some people matter more than others
For those of us who have been waiting for the census season to start after being pushed back from January to July in Chicago, and later in other places, the announcement that we wouldn’t be working through the end of October was met with disappointment. As the days have gone on, there has been noise that many states, including Illinois where I work will shut down even earlier, and in fact, last week I was already been transferred to Iowa to help with the count there. Every day there are new rumors of impending layoffs, as states get ready to shut down ahead of the September 30th deadline.
Sometimes this almost seems to come from a sense of helplessness. This census has not gone well, and the number of inaccuracies that will likely result from a rushed count with a lack of oversite and missing quality measures is unimaginable. For those of us conducting the interviews, there is a sense of dejection over something we’ve worked so hard at, being threatened by a President who is insisting on rushing the count for his own purposes.
Just one more thing that doesn’t make sense with this administration. No one can really figure out how the President can justify cutting the count short or why he is not slapped down for attempting to do so. Unfortunately, this is yet another example of the framework his entire administration is built on. After we had our first African American president who went a long way towards creating an atmosphere of inclusiveness and diversity, we now have a leader who entire platform is based on exclusion.
The really absurd part is that he didn’t have to cut the census short. He could have sat back and let the pandemic do it for him. While April 1st was Census day, many places only started the count last week, five months late. So, if he held the line at when the data was due, it would have still been incomplete due to inadequate time to complete all the interviews and do the required quality checks.
I remember learning the basics of the census in 9th grade civics. We learned how once every 10 years every person in the U.S. states was to be counted, an effort that seems just as monumental today as it did back then. We learned how the census determines the number of seats each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives, how districts will be redrawn and how billions of dollars of federal funds will be allocated to local communities.
Now I have come to realize the reality of all that it affects. The census outcomes determine locations of highways and schools, hospitals, housing, police and firehouses, long- term healthcare and rehab facilities. In my neighborhood we have at least six rehab facilities, at least four of which were established because of the findings of the last census in 2010.
Due to the importance of the information gathered, the fact that any errors made will be unable to be rectified for a decade and the problems created by the pandemic, the bureau requested extra time to complete the count. I don’t know what it was like going door to door during the last census, but during this one the precautions that need to be taken can slow us down or necessitate extra breaks, and it has greatly limited how many are willing to speak to us. Many people will only speak to me from behind a closed door.
Because of this, the Census bureau requested an extension until October 31st for collecting responses and an extra four months to process and deliver the findings. This would increase response rates for a number of communities including rural ones without broadband who can’t complete their forms online, and immigrant neighborhoods where people may not understand how to fill out the form by themselves.
Even with extra time, reaching such areas is daunting. In large, rural states there may be miles between houses meaning it takes a long time to even make attempts, and potential proxies are no where nearby. For immigrant populations who may be suspicious of the government, it may take extra rapport building and explanations to get them to understand that their responses are confidential and to help them complete the form, especially if English is not their first language.
`Many such states with hard to reach populations, spent the better part of last year planning activities to help increase the response rate, by making iPads available in places like clinic waiting rooms and libraries. But because of COVID-19 these all had to be canceled.
States with a lot of rural area have, unsurprisingly, some of the lowest response rates. According to a recent article in the Daily Yonder, as of the end of July, 38 percent of the nation’s 1,971 nonmetropolitan counties had a response rate under 50 percent.
However, even in metropolitan areas, African Americans and immigrants are at greatly increased risk for being undercounted, underrepresented and for having resources under allocated. This was the case in 2010 when there was no pandemic or shortened enumeration period. Given that census data affects $1.5 trillion in federal spending and both state and congressional district maps, even small miscounts or errors can have devastating consequences.
When the Census Bureau originally asked for more time, Trump responded that it was an act of God and that they had to be given the extension, adding he didn’t think four months was long enough. Then suddenly in August the administration reversed course, demanding that data collection end a month early, and stating that the deadline for delivering the results would remain December 31st.
On September 4th a federal judge blocked the early end dates until Septmber 17th when the administration was required to explain why it is so crucial for them to end the census early. When the date came however, Trump’s team claimed they hadn’t had enough time to get the documents together. There will be another hearing on Sept. 22nd.
It isn’t hard to understand why Trump wants to cut the Census as short as he can possibly get away with. The abrupt reversal seems to be the result of Trump’s renewed interest in using the census for partisan benefit. The decision to eliminate the additional follow-up reviews appears to be an attempt to produce data that disadvantages minority groups for the next ten years.
It’s just another way for him to hold on to power. He also wanted a citizenship question to be added, in order to depress the response rates of undocumented immigrants and legal immigrants who have yet to be granted citizenship. This would primarily benefit Republicans and non-Hispanic whites. Not even his own party backed that one. nor did the Supreme Court who shot it down.
Next Trump sought to not count undocumented immigrants for the purposes of reapportioning seats in the House, something that is completely unconstitutional. actually instructing the census bureau to train enumerators not to count them. Of course, that was also a way of getting around the question issue, since in order to not count them you would first have to ask if the members of the household were all in the U.S. legally. For immigrants both those who are here legally and those who are undocumented this would have made an already concerned population even less likely to be willing to complete the census.
However, the constitution clearly states that all persons be counted, not all citizens, all people born here, or all those in the majority population, all persons. So, Trump didn’t have a leg to stand on regarding that one either. Unfortunately, it seems he likely got at least some of what he wanted. The number of immigrant households that seemed fearful of speaking to me definitely grew after Trump’s announcement.
I came up with ways to try to reassure those in immigrant neighborhoods about confidentiality (not so effective as they didn’t trust the government — for good reason — and didn’t trust a government employee’s assurances), as well as pointing out that they didn’t have to answer anything they didn’t want to. But fearful of answering anything they often politely refuse, and more often simply won’t open the door at all.
Now he is attempting to ensure the count goes short.
Those who would most like be uncounted should Trump get his way are those from marginalized, poor, immigrant populations living in hard to reach communities. These are the people that Trump believes don’t deserve the same rights the desirable people do.
If nothing else, this census battle has underscored one crucial point about this President, which is not just unpleasant, but down right dangerous. The census is the one thing in this country that brings equality to all people, which says to people everywhere in our nation, “You matter, you make a difference, you count.”
But Trump wants to say just the opposite, that everyone doesn’t count the same, that some aren’t worth as much as others, that some don’t deserve as much as others. There is hardly any distance at all between that and deciding “Everyone doesn’t deserve to have the same rights,” something this President has hinted at on several occasions. The only thing scarier, is that Trump believes he is the one to determine who matters and who doesn’t and who gets certain rights and who doesn’t.
Although we have a way to go, we have been making important strides toward ensuring that all people have the same rights without regard to skin color, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, gender or country of origin or other differences. Now not only does Trump not want to help that effort along, he seems to want to reverse all the advancements we’ve made.
If we let him determine who counts during the census by cutting it off months before it should be, allowing him to create a picture of our country that is inaccurate and which won’t allocate funds and services for many of the people who need it the most, we are letting him revoke one of the most important foundations of our nation found in our Declaration of Independence.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
. . . And the right to be counted.
Natalie Frank has a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and often writes about mental health and abnormal psychology. She is the Managing Editor for Novellas and Serials at LVP Publications. Her collection of poetry, Disguised I Breathe, In Love I Hold, can be found here on Amazon. She currently is proud to work for the U.S. Census.
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