Birth right, and the Census

Credit: Francesco Ugolini, Flickr

In a nation put together by immigrants, and as an immigrant, it's breathtaking to experience the current climate in which immigrants are demonized. Legal immigration is being targeted in the name of rooting out illegal immigration.

The latest attack is on so-called birthright citizenship. In this article, the author cites Fox News that ran statistics on "births to unauthorized immigrants" used to support the abolishment of birthright. Fox News cites Pew but does not link to the source of the data. I traced it back to this 2015 article.

How does anyone count these births? It turns out Pew did not do a survey on this topic. Pew cites surveys run by the Census Bureau, namely, American Community Survey and Current Population Survey.

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Fox News will soon discover that those statistics will no longer be available due to actions being pushed by the President and Department of Commerce.

You may be aware of the other controversy: the Census Bureau is being forced to add a question on citizenship to the Census. Our Supreme Court just shielded Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross from answering questions about this decision.

If a citizenship question exists on the survey, the unauthorized immigrant will simply refuse to take the survey, or lie. Why would anyone acknowledge one's illegal status, and risk being thrown out of the country? Suddenly, the number of unauthorized immigrants reported by these surveys will be severely underestimated, and births to unauthorized will plunge as a percent of total births. Not what the anti-birthright team wants!

Note that this comment is concerned about the accuracy of the data coming out of the Census, and I am not endorsing illegal immigration.

 

 

Comments

[zbicyclist]

1. Part of the damage to the census count is already done, just by raising the issue. Those who are here illegally are already understandably skittish about their dealings with the government.

2. The point isn't just about the count. Resources are distributed using census results (congressional seats, various federal programs funded per capita, etc.). There are many who won't care about an accurate count so long as an inaccurate count gives their area more $ and power.