The ‘Citizenship Question’–Council Committee Weighs Census Issues

The City Council’s Miscellaneous Matters Committee Monday night will take up two resolutions “in support of an accurate 2020 Census and to create a “Complete Count Committee” with local outreach, assistance and promotion” as well as “to express opposition to the addition of the “Citizenship Question” regarding the 2020 Census.” See agenda here.

CT Post reporter Brain Lockhart has more on this:

While elected officials always fret about a loss of population at census time, there is heightened concern about depressed participation because of Trump’s hardline approach to undocumented immigrants and, more specifically, the inclusion of a new citizenship question on the 2020 census.

The U.S. Census Bureau says on its website that the question helps “government and communities enforce laws, regulations, and policies against discrimination based on national origin.” And the bureau is “legally bound to strict confidentially requirements. Individual records are not shared with anyone, including federal agencies and law enforcement entities … Not the IRS, not the FBI, not the CIA, and not with any other government agency.”

But critics see a political agenda.

“Adding citizenship as a census question would break from decades of precedent and create a chilling effect on participation in immigrant communities,” state Attorney General George Jepsen said in April, when Connecticut joined one of several pending lawsuits to block the question.

Full story here.