--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Welcome to Today Explained, I'm Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: [Intro music fades out] Today, we're talking about the census. I saw some weather report that says it's going to be snowing tomorrow on the East Coast, at least in D.C. and New York, which makes me think, yeah, it's maybe time to start thinking about gifts for the holiday season. And KiwiCo would like you to give them a shot.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: KiwiCo creates these hands-on projects for kids of all ages that make learning about science and technology and engineering and art and math, like, way fun. Give the gift of creative confidence this holiday with KiwiCo. They're offering today's Explained listeners the chance to try them out for free at kiwico.com.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Most of us think about the census for about 10 minutes once every 10 years. But not Hansi Lo Wang from NPR. He thinks about the census all the damn time. It's really hard to overstate how important, how influential the census is. It really forms the reality. I think that's the best way to put it. The reality that our democracy is formed upon. The way daily life just works in America.
--:-- Hansi Lo Wang: That's right. The census is a fundamental part of our democracy. It's a constitutional requirement that the federal government conduct a headcount of every person living in the United States every 10 years.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The reason Hansi's got the census on his mind is this. There's this legal battle going on in the background of American politics right now. And it's going to determine who counts in the United States and who doesn't.
--:-- Hansi Lo Wang: That's right. The census has always been a contentious issue, but this time around, it's become super controversial, at least in terms of lawsuits, because of a new citizenship question that was added to the 2020 census by the Trump administration.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And what is that question? Is it, are you a citizen? This question asks specifically, is this person a citizen of the United States? You have multiple options among them, you know, born in the United States, born in Puerto Rico, Guam, other territories of the United States, born abroad of U.S. citizen, parent or parents. Or you can say that you're a U.S. citizen by naturalization and you write in the year of your naturalization or you check off a box that says, no, not a U.S. citizen.
--:-- Hansi Lo Wang: That's right. And where did all of this start? Where did the Trump administration get this idea to add this question?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I guess I should start with what I know through the court documents. Through the emails and memos that I've read that have been released as part of these lawsuits, I learned that after Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross was confirmed, this would be in late February 2017, it seems as though days later he was asking his staff about a citizenship question.
--:-- Hansi Lo Wang: That's right. Emails also show that former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon contacted Wilbur Ross about adding a citizenship question. And that also Kansas Secretary of State Chris Kobach, former vice chair of the now defunct commission into voter fraud started by President Trump. Chris Kobach emailed and spoke with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and suggested a wording for a citizenship question.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And for months, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross pressured his staff to figure out a way to get a citizenship question onto the 2020 census.
--:-- Hansi Lo Wang: When Commerce Department staff reached out to the Justice Department, the Justice Department at first pushed back and said we not sure we want to add this right now. And then Commerce staff went to Department of Homeland Security and asked, and they were sent back to the Justice Department. And eventually, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross connected with former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Sessions got involved, really got things moving at the Justice Department.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And in December of 2017, a formal letter was sent to the Census Bureau asking for a citizenship question. And why did the Trump administration say it wanted to add this question to the 2020 census?
--:-- Hansi Lo Wang: The Trump administration said it added this question because the Justice Department wants better citizenship data. Data that's necessary for the Department of Justice to protect voters and specifically to help us better comply with the Voting Rights Act.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What's interesting is that ever since the Voting Rights Act was enacted, 1965, the federal government has relied on estimates of citizenship. When voting rights advocates heard about this decision from March, to add this question for better voting rights enforcement, they were very surprised.
--:-- Hansi Lo Wang: They don't believe that the federal government needs better data than the government relies on to enforce the Voting Rights Act. So it really raises the question, why exactly did the Trump administration push to get a citizenship question onto the 2020 census?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Adding a citizenship question onto the 2020 census means that the federal government is going to go essentially to every household in the country, asking people in this household, how many of you are citizens, how many of you are not U.S. citizens?
--:-- Hansi Lo Wang: Having that granular level of data has lots of implications on redistricting. Number one, state and local governments can use this information once it's released. If this question stays on, there could be states, local municipalities that start drawing political districts based on the citizenship population.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Another pattern that I've found, and again, to be clear, the Trump administration says what's driving their push is better enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. But if you were to look through the more than 12,000 emails and memos that have been released as part of these lawsuits in the early discussions amongst the Trump administration officials about this question and talking about, do we need one? How do we get one onto the census?
--:-- Hansi Lo Wang: The Voting Rights Act is not mentioned. What is mentioned is apportionment. Apportionment is figuring out how we divide up the pie of political power. This is dividing up congressional seats among the states, and specifically the seats in the House of Representatives.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And that's related to Electoral College. There was a discussion within the Trump administration as part of these deliberations over a citizenship question that raised the possibility of breaking with a long-standing policy in this country, of including every person living in this country in apportionment numbers.
--:-- Hansi Lo Wang: Is there any indication that's what the Trump administration really wants to do here, add a citizenship question to affect how redistricting or reapportionment works?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Beyond mentions of apportionment and undocumented immigrants in these emails and memos released as part of the lawsuits, I'm not aware of any direct evidence that changing how redistricting and reapportionment is done is why the Trump administration added this question.
--:-- Hansi Lo Wang: And in fact, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross doubled down just yesterday. The Justice Department requested that we ask the question in order to help them enforce the Voting Rights Act. That's the genesis of the work.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Some people would disagree with that, but... Well, it is the fact that the Justice Department wants it.
--:-- Hansi Lo Wang: I think we need to keep in mind, though, the stakes here. There is Census Bureau research that suggests that beyond the questions of whether this is about redistricting or for reapportionment, that adding a citizenship question can really affect the final count.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The thing about this citizenship question is a whole lot of people might not want to answer it. And that's why a bunch of states are now suing the Trump administration.
--:-- Hansi Lo Wang: That's right. The plaintiffs are making a range of claims, mainly that by adding this question, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who has authority over the census, he misused that authority. By getting this question onto the census, a question that Census Bureau research suggests could dramatically increase an undercount of households with non-citizens and scare off households with non-citizens from participating in the census.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That was, these plaintiffs claim, intentionally trying to discriminate against immigrant communities of color.
--:-- Hansi Lo Wang: I can imagine if I were an undocumented immigrant living in a house, let's just say here in Washington, D.C., and I got the census in the mail and it said, are you a citizen? I might just throw the thing away out of fear that if I say no, that the government might come knock at my door and maybe deport me.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Is that a fear here? It's definitely a fear. That's something I heard when, you know, there was a test run of the 2020 census in Rhode Island earlier this year.
--:-- Hansi Lo Wang: And my NPR colleague, Marisa Peñaloza, and I, we spoke to a number of folks who are undocumented. And he told us this citizenship question is just another reason why they wouldn't want to participate in the census.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So already there is a lot of fear in this current political climate of increased immigration enforcement, growing anti-immigrant rhetoric, that just the idea of someone from the federal government coming to your door or sending you a form or asking you to give up personal information, that's a super, super sensitive situation for a lot of folks in the country right now.
--:-- Hansi Lo Wang: Has the Trump administration and Wilbur Ross or anyone else addressed those concerns?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Well, it's important to remember that federal law prohibits the Census Bureau from releasing personally identifiable information until 72 years after it's collected through the census.
--:-- Hansi Lo Wang: For 72 years the government cannot share this information about individuals. The Census Bureau also cannot share this personally identifiable information with law enforcement agencies including Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, FBI, police departments.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But there's recent Census Bureau research to prepare for the 2020 census, to figure out what are people thinking right now about the census, and these participants and these focus groups across different ethnic groups were super concerned, super mistrustful that the government is going to keep this promise of confidentiality.
--:-- Hansi Lo Wang: They think this citizenship question is a way to locate people in the country without documentation. One focus group participant said, this is coming at a moment with all this immigration enforcement. I may not have any immigration issues myself, but I'm not going to participate in this question for fear of jeopardizing other people living in my household, other people in my community.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So now that these lawsuits are in progress, what happens? Is there a chance that one of them gets this question off the census? Or is there a chance that a determination in one of them keeps the question on the census?
--:-- Hansi Lo Wang: I mean, that's a possible scenario. The plaintiffs in all of these six lawsuits around the country, they're asking U.S. district judges to issue rulings that would get this question removed.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But we're expecting any ruling at the district court level to be appealed through the circuit courts and eventually to the Supreme Court.
--:-- Hansi Lo Wang: Is there a chance if this question is left on the census in 2020 that it's later removed?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There's talk amongst Democratic lawmakers, especially now that Democrats are going to take over control of the House in January. They're trying to figure out what's on the table here. What could they do as lawmakers?
--:-- Hansi Lo Wang: You know, certainly there's a lot of interest in doing more oversight and more investigations into what exactly was behind this decision. Another strategy that has been floated is, is there something in the appropriations process that Democrats can rally behind and to stop the funding of any census that includes a citizenship question?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If these lawsuits fail, if the question gets added on the 2020 census, what will it mean if people who are undocumented in America or relatives of undocumented people in America or permanent residents even, people on work visas who might feel paranoia from this question end up skipping the census altogether?
--:-- Hansi Lo Wang: First, it means the Census Bureau has an even harder job than it was going to have before the citizenship question was going to be added. All those groups you just described are considered among the hardest groups to count.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And counting every single person is the Census Bureau's job. It's a constitutional mandate.
--:-- Hansi Lo Wang: And then in the end, when we get our 2020 census results, the implications of that data that is going to determine how many congressional seats each state gets, how many electoral college votes each state gets, It's also going to be used to determine how an estimated 800 billion in federal tax dollars are distributed around the country.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so if there are communities, you know, especially communities that are predominantly made up of non-citizens, they just may essentially disappear off the map.
--:-- Hansi Lo Wang: Hansi Lo Wang is a national correspondent for NPR.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm Sean Rameswaram from Today Explained. Thanks again to KiwiCo for their support of the show today. If you're stumped on what to give the kids in your life this holiday season, check out KiwiCo. They create hands-on projects for kids of all ages and even adults that try to make learning about science and technology and engineering and art and math wicked fun.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: KiwiCo is offering Today Explained listeners the chance to try their stuff out for free. You can find out more at KiwiCo.com slash explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And a podcast you can try out for free is The Shadows from the CBC in Canada and acclaimed producer Caitlin Prest. The show is a fictional series that takes you inside another relationship. You can listen as two people fall in love and fight and make up and break down all over again. Maybe it'll teach you something about your relationship or maybe it'll scare you away from ever even having a relationship. You can find The Shadows at cbc.ca slash The Shadows or wherever you find your podcasts.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Thank you.
