The Census and the Supreme Court

Here’s a question for you: How many illegal immigrants are currently residing in the United States? (Sorry, didn’t mean to offend. How many non-citizens without the legal authority to be here are living in our country? Better?) The answer depends on your source of information and the exact number may vary greatly. The PEW Research Center, a commonly cited authority, says 10.5 million. MPI, the Migration Policy Institute, says 11 million. A paper written by three professors from the Yale School of Management says between 16 to 29 million. Political commentators seemingly pick whatever figure suits their particular argument. So, who knows? Maybe we should count or something.

That brings us to the U.S. Census Bureau. According to the Constitution, the U.S. population must be counted every ten years. The next such count is scheduled for 2020. Recently, the President attempted to add a question to the survey regarding citizenship. Not surprisingly, the Liberal Left immediately filed a lawsuit to stop him.

Let’s consider the history. As early as 1820, the census asked residents about their citizenship status. Since then, the question has been asked in different ways many times, but not always. Apparently, there is a long form and a short form that are used for the census, and the question has most frequently been used on the long form which doesn’t go to everyone. Interesting enough, questions have been added and removed many times over the years, and the Supreme Court has rarely gotten involved in such routine matters.

This year, however, the courts are involved. As with everything this President endorses, the Left is sure to mount a vigorous challenge. If President Trump declared the sky to be blue, there would no doubt be a lawsuit before a Liberal federal judge before the end of the day. The media would spend the next week reporting it and maybe we could even get a special prosecutor to investigate the claims. In this case, not only did the challenge reach the highest court, but the supposedly Conservative Supreme Court ruled that the question of citizenship could not be added to the census. Wow!

What truly boggles the mind is their argument against the issue. According to Justice Roberts, the “sole stated reason seems to have been contrived.” So, basically, because they didn’t like the reasons given for asking, they won’t let the question be added. Justice Thomas was as dumbfounded as me stating, “For the first time ever, the Court invalidates an agency action solely because it questions the sincerity of the agency’s otherwise adequate rationale.” So instead of deciding the case on its merits, or in this instance, trying to determine if the question serves a legitimate purpose, five of our justices made their decision based on the motives of the President. Sad!

There are, of course, legitimate reasons for asking about citizenship, primarily federal funding and representation, both of which are calculated based on population. If certain states (for example, California) claim a greater number of citizens than are actually residing there, they receive more federal money and a higher number of Representatives in the U.S. House. Other states then suffer by receiving less money and fewer Representatives than they deserve.

And how does California claim a greater population? By counting enormous numbers of non-citizens! Now, these may be wonderful people, but should they be gaining the benefit of federal money, or to be more accurate, our tax dollars? Or should our hard earned taxes be used to benefit American citizens first? And representation? How do non-citizens deserve any form of representation in our federal government? But the Supreme Court thinks these are not good enough reasons to ask about citizenship on the census?

Let’s use some common sense. If we’re going to spend the time and money to do a census as mandated by law, why shouldn’t we use the opportunity to learn some things about our population? Information is power. Information helps us make wise decisions. In this case, information helps us allot federal funds appropriately and ensure fair and equal representation in Congress. And if we aren’t going to use the census to gain knowledge, maybe we should just go house to house with a clipboard and use tally marks to count heads. Again, anyone think some common sense should be applied here?

(By the way, regarding the PEW Research Center mentioned earlier. When they estimate the number of illegal immigrants in our country, they start by using general population figures. And where do they get these numbers? The U.S. Census Bureau. You know, the government agency that isn’t allowed to just ask. In which case, we wouldn’t need to bother the PEW folks for an estimate.)