After the Trump administration moved to to ask about citizenship status in the upcoming 2020 Census, 18 states, a dozen cities and the District of Columbia sued to remove the question. On Tuesday, City Attorney Zach Klein announced Columbus will join the case.
The Economic Community Development Institute on Columbus’ East side provides financing for local businesses—about a third of them recent immigrants. But CEO Inna Kinney explains she relies on federal funding to do so, and those dollars are tied to the Census.
“ECDI receives funding from community development block grant dollars,” Kinney explains. “These dollars come to the states and cities based on their populations. If the Census includes a citizenship demand, there is no guarantee that the number of people in Columbus and Ohio will not be counted accurately.”
In about two years, the U.S. Census Bureau will count everyone living in the United States. In addition to divvying up federal funding like the community development block grant, those population figures determine representation in Congress. Because of the survey's importance, the Trump administration's decision to ask about citizenship has gotten many advocates up in arms.
“There’s a real concern that there’s a nefarious motive of including a citizenship question in the 2020 census to depress response at best, and to use this information to target immigrants at worst,” Klein said in a press conference on Tuesday.
Klein’s complaint states that in 2014, immigrants made up 11.6 percent of Columbus’ population, and 22 percent of those were undocumented - about 21,000 people. But many worry asking about citizenship will hurt responses among legal immigrant households as well.
Klein criticizes including the question after just four months of consideration. He points out Census officials spent nine years considering whether to combine a person’s race and ethnicity into one question. And going back to 1980, the agency’s leaders have rejected asking about citizenship because it could reduce responses.
"Under Republican and Democratic presidents, they have all agreed that a question like this will depress response," Klein says.
Census officials haven’t posed the question to the entire country since 1950—other questionnaires like the American Community Survey have, but they poll a far smaller share of households.
