WASHINGTON — Despite a federal judge’s ruling last week allowing census enumeration to continue through Oct. 31, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said this week that the Census Bureau will end data collection on Oct. 5.
Civil rights groups that filed a lawsuit requesting an extended count, including Asian Americans Advancing Justice and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, are concerned the early cut-off will result in an undercount of hard-to-count communities, including Hispanics, Blacks and Native Americans.
“Unfortunately, this census has been the most complex in modern history,” said AAJC President John Yang. “We’re not sure when they’re going to stop counting.”
Census Bureau spokesman Tim Swarens said in an email that 97.9% of Americans have been counted, 66.4% of whom completed census questionnaires by phone, mail or online.
But Yang said a minimum 99% national completion rate is required for an accurate count, with each percentage point being approximately 3.5 million people. “These last percentage points are the percentage points where communities of color, immigrant communities, communities in poverty are always the ones that are missed,” he said.
Census takers usually would have been going door to door starting in May and would have completed the count by July. Due to the coronavirus, the Bureau delayed sending census takers to knock on doors to July.
“We are taking steps and adapting our operations to make sure everyone is counted, while keeping everyone safe,” Swarens said.
Yang said health risks posed by COVID-19 have made people more wary of opening their doors to census takers.
Census data determines the allocation of $1.5 trillion in annual federal funding for sectors like food assistance, health care and education, said Brennan Center for Justice attorney Thomas Wolf, who represents several plaintiffs in a census lawsuit led by the National Urban League. Wolf said that an extended census timeline would account for the four-month period between April and August when the Bureau planned to space out its operations. The Bureau also needs more time to count those who’ve been displaced by recent natural disasters like wildfires and hurricanes, Wolf said.
Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund President Thomas Saenz said that the Trump administration has repeatedly attempted to manipulate the census process to reduce the Hispanic count. One of those attempts was a July 21 executive memorandum by President Donald Trump to exclude undocumented immigrants from data that determines how many congressional seats each state is apportioned. Earlier, the administration tried to add a citizenship question to the census.
States with the highest numbers of undocumented immigrants including Texas, Florida and New Jersey stand to lose congressional representation.
“As Latinos learn that the Trump administration doesn’t want them to count, that increases their motivation to be counted,” said Saenz.
His group and Common Cause filed lawsuits to block the memorandum; the memorandum was ruled illegal on statutory grounds, but Common Cause Census Project Manager Keshia Morris is pushing for a ruling that the memorandum is unconstitutional.
Swarens said that enumerators are bound by law to keep census data private from law enforcement and other federal agencies, using it only for statistical purposes. Wolf said there’s a nationwide network of lawyers who help ensure these confidentiality laws are protected.
Apportionment counts, which are usually sent to the president by Dec. 31, will instead be due in April 2021 due to the court ruling. George Washington University researcher Andrew Reamer said the Census Bureau typically has around six months to process census data, but trying to meet the Dec. 31 goal set by Ross would have allowed only three months.