If Trump’s citizenship question is on census, Illinois could lose a seat in Congress

Illinois could lose political clout and federal funding if immigrants afraid of deportation in the Trump era sit out the 2020 census, experts say.

Officials with the U.S. Census Bureau are weighing whether to ask households across the country about their citizenship status, a move experts say could have a chilling effect on participation among immigrants. The fear is that the data, including home addresses, could lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to the doors of those living in the country without documentation. And even for those on their way to becoming naturalized citizens, the controversial question may keep them from raising their hands and being counted, especially as the immigration debate has taken sharp turns and left them uneasy about their future here.

In Illinois alone, immigrants make up about 7 percent of the state’s population, ranging from those on their way to becoming naturalized citizens to others living here illegally, said William Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution. Illinois’ falling population means it’s already on the cusp of losing one representative, but if immigrants decide they don’t want to be counted, that could cost the state a total of two seats, Frey said.

The census — which is a count of the raw population, not a tally of eligible voters or citizens — determines the number of representatives each state holds in the U.S. House, and it’s used to decide how political maps will be redrawn, known as redistricting. Losing congressional seats erodes a state’s political power, said Dick Simpson, a professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“It means we are losing clout — whether that seat would be filled by a Democrat or a Republican,” Simpson said, explaining it would mean fewer lawmakers sitting on committees that determine how the federal budget pie is divided.

President Donald Trump’s U.S. Department of Justice in December requested that the Census Bureau ask all households about citizenship, arguing such data would help in cases of racial discrimination at the ballot box, illegal under the Voting Rights Act.

The exact language of the query was not detailed in the Justice letter to census officials, and the department declined to comment when the Tribune asked about the wording. In the 2000 census, a fraction of households were asked: “Is this person a citizen of the United States,” and had five responding categories, including an option to specify if citizenship was through naturalization. But a similar query to all households could spur legal challenges about the accuracy of the count, experts predict.

Once a decade, the federal nationwide population count is taken as mandated by the U.S. Constitution, and participation is required by law. That data then determines how federal funding for education, transportation and public health is meted out, according to the bureau’s website. It also determines the number of representatives in the U.S. House each state gets, and it’s used to determine how political maps need to be redrawn. Census officials did not comment on any penalties for failing to participate.

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The Federation For American Immigration Reform supports posing the citizenship question, saying that the data should be used to rethink how state political maps are redrawn, said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the group that advocates for policies that reduce immigration. He explains that the group thinks noncitizens should be excluded from the official count when it comes to redistricting.

“Should citizens in Ohio lose representation to noncitizens in California, and that (has) certainly been happening,” Mehlman said. “States that have larger numbers of people illegally pick up representation.”

Celina Villanueva, of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, argues that excluding the immigrant population goes against the longtime spirit of the census count.

“You’re essentially trying to suppress communities of color from participating in something that would be beneficial to their communities,” Villanueva said. “Congressional districts are not based on U.S. citizens, it’s based on total population. When you look at where immigrants live, big portions live in cities. You’re talking not just about racial (but) you’re talking about class implications.”

She also questions how citizenship data will help the Justice Department enforce the Voting Rights Act.

Past inquiries about citizenship

Last year, a report about 2020 census topics did not include citizenship. A final list of questions must be submitted two years before the census takes place; a fast-approaching deadline is March 31. No decision has been made about the Justice Department’s request, according to a statement from the Census Bureau.

The census first asked residents about citizenship in 1820, and the question has varied over the decades, according to a report from the bureau. In 1910, it asked residents for the year of immigration to the United States and then asked if the person was “naturalized or an alien.” The 1950 census did not explicitly ask about citizenship, but it did ask foreign-born residents if they were naturalized citizens, according to a copy of the questionnaire. For decades, questions about a resident’s citizenship were only posed to a small fraction of the population. Since 2005, some 3.5 million American households are asked about citizenship in the annual American Community Survey.

But that hasn’t stopped efforts to have the question asked of every household. Arturo Vargas, the executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund, is on a census advisory committee and he recalls efforts in the past three decades to have the census identify and push to exclude noncitizens as a way of determining how many congressional seats each state gets.

“This isn’t necessarily new,” Vargas said. “What is new, is that it happened at such a late moment … when this particular topic is particularly controversial at the moment in American society.”

In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in a ruling that total population, not just the number of eligible voters, should be used to draw districts.

Still, groups like the Federation For American Immigration Reform say noncitizens shouldn’t be used to determine the number of representatives because some are in the country illegal. Mehlman said a citizenship question posed to all households would produce more conclusive data. It also could help communities plan for things such as how many immigrant children would be enrolling in local schools, he said.

Trump has taken a hard line on immigration, frequently vowing to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Immigration policy was at the center of a federal government shutdown in recent days. Lawmakers are debating what to do with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The program offers some protections and makes recipients a low priority for deportations. Last year, Trump pulled the plug on DACA and challenged Congress to come up with a reform program.

Likewise, Trump is ending protections for Haitians and Salvadorans that allowed them to live and work here under a temporary program, though it did not lead to lawful permanent resident status. The program was opened to Haitians in 2010 after a massive 7.0 earthquake forced them to leave the country and, in many cases, prevented them from returning home. Salvadorans also were granted temporary relief to stay in the country because of a series of earthquakes in 2001 in El Salvador.

The uncertainty over immigration policy is why Julie Dowling, an associate professor at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, says the proposed citizenship question could skew the census count. People may take a pass because they’re afraid.

“They (Census Bureau) are doing research and focus group research looking at government distrust, how people feel about trusting the government, how afraid you are that the information might be used against you,” Dowling said. “They are looking at if people are afraid and how this might impact the census. They are already doing research on this, then you are going to add a question that you know is going to make people feel distrustful. It doesn’t make sense.”

And there are households with mixed statuses; U.S. citizens, for instance, may skip the count if there was any risk of outing an undocumented relative under the same roof, Dowling said.

Consequences for Illinois

Last year, Illinois lost its spot as the fifth-largest state to Pennsylvania, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures from July 1, 2016, to July 1, 2017. It was the fourth year in a row that the state experienced a drop in population.

After the 2010 census, Illinois lost one of its seats and currently has 18 representatives. By comparison, the state had 27 seats after the 1910 census.

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The number of electoral votes each state gets in presidential elections is equal to its number of senators and representatives, according to the U.S Electoral College’s website. The number of each state’s electoral votes has already been allocated for the 2020 presidential election based on the 2010 Census.

Illinois has had a powerful congressional delegation for years that has gotten things done for the state, Simpson said. But a drop in state representatives means there are fewer people from Illinois to head congressional committees or subcommittees, he said.

It’s likely the state will only lose one seat after the 2020 Census because of the population loss that has taken place during the past couple of years, Simpson said. Which congressional district would be most affected would depend on who is in power in Springfield when the data is released, he said. For example, if Democrats are in power then they might merge two Republican-majority districts into one.

A drop in census participation also could cripple efforts in the growing Latino communities to have a bigger footprint in politics. Erendira Rendon, an organizer for the Pilsen-based Resurrection Project, points out there currently is only one Latino-majority congressional district in Illinois.

“We are still a community that’s growing,” she said. “For us, we want to see the number of Latino-majority districts increase. We worry about if a citizenship question would intimidate permanent legal residents.”

As a DACA recipient, she is hesitant to turn over her home address because protections from that program are not extended to other people in her household.

A political message?

Many, including Dowling, think it’s simply too late to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census. Dowling, who wrote a book exploring the census’ race question, said there hasn’t been a thorough examination of how people would respond. By comparison the bureau has been working for about a decade on a question for the 2020 census that will ask households about race and ethnicity.

Frey said it could also turn out to be more costly if people don’t completely fill out the 2020 census, meaning the bureau would have to send people door-to-door.

And organizations that typically encourage immigrant communities to take part in the census would be put in a tough position, Rendon said. That’s especially true because people in those communities are already concerned about deportations.

Thomas Saenz, the president and general counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said if a question about citizenship made it onto the 2020 census, the bureau could face legal challenges on the grounds that it would lead to an inaccurate count and thus not fulfill its constitutional mandate. That’s one of the reasons why Saenz said the request could be more political than rooted in an actual need.

“I’m not sure the DOJ is serious,” Saenz said. “This could be just a dog whistle to the far right that this administration often seems to feel the need to cater to. It could be a political message.”

emalagon@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @ElviaMalagon

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