Why the 2020 census shouldn’t ask about your citizenship status
Jennifer Van Hook on The Conversation considers a citizenship question on the Census. She writes:
“Is this person a citizen of the United States?”
In December 2017, the Department of Justice formally proposed adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census. This question would ostensibly help to enforce the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
However, census experts, over 100 national scientific and civil rights organizations, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and Democratic senators and House members protested vehemently.
I am a social scientist who studies immigration. I have used census data on immigration and citizenship in my research for over two decades, and I have urged government statistical agencies before to collect more data about immigrants. But I don’t think it’s wise to collect citizenship status in the 2020 census. Doing so would not only raise the risk of collecting inaccurate data, but also reduce public confidence in the census itself.
KJ