Citizenship Question on Census

This is one of those issues which doesn't affect most of us specifically.  But as a state with lots of immigrants the plan to ask the citizenship status of any residents on the census can have a significant effect. 

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/15/politics/census-citizenship-new-york/index.html

It seems obvious to me that households with one or more undocumented immigrants would be less likely to answer the census completely or at all. Or even those who have legal status might feel compelled to keep a lower profile given the anti-immigrant fervor of the current Chief Executive.

So I'm glad to see this judge's decision. We need to know how many people are here, and plan Federal funding and representation appropriately.

I'm sure Republicans would love to suppress resident numbers in states like California and New Jersey that have lots of immigrants. 

I have zero confidence that this will be upheld by SCOTUS.

I wouldn't be so sure about that.  While I haven't read the opinion (it's 277 or so pages), as I understand it, he ruled that the action violated the Administrative Procedures Act - in other words, the Commerce Department didn't follow the proper and required process to make the change (he also ruled that the reasons stated for the change were pretextual, but while that is part of the basis for the APA ruling, it is not the entire basis).  Also, unless SCOTUS takes it immediately, it will likely be too late to put the question on the form.

Steve said:
I wouldn't be so sure about that.  While I haven't read the opinion (it's 277 or so pages), as I understand it, he ruled that the action violated the Administrative Procedures Act - in other words, the Commerce Department didn't follow the proper and required process to make the change (he also ruled that the reasons stated for the change were pretextual, but while that is part of the basis for the APA ruling, it is not the entire basis).  Also, unless SCOTUS takes it immediately, it will likely be too late to put the question on the form.

Believe me, I hope you're right.

If the question is on the Form we should all refuse to answer.

Also, Judge Furman is really smart and works insanely hard.  Google him.  Quite impressive.

STANV said:
If the question is on the Form we should all refuse to answer.

 Then what? As I understand it the Trump circus wants it to be a mandatory question. So if you don't answer it, I assume your census polling data is thrown out. So when they redraw districts NJ could lose representatives in the House because a bunch of people didn't get counted. 

Please rethink this attitude and don't spread the idea. It would be one of the most self-defeating acts of protest in history.

mrincredible said:

STANV said:
If the question is on the Form we should all refuse to answer.

 Then what? As I understand it the Trump circus wants it to be a mandatory question. So if you don't answer it, I assume your census polling data is thrown out. So when they redraw districts NJ could lose representatives in the House because a bunch of people didn't get counted. 
Please rethink this attitude and don't spread the idea. It would be one of the most self-defeating acts of protest in history.

 Are you sure that skipping one question invalidates the form?

This is what I found.

https://www.npr.org/2018/04/19/603629576/skipping-the-2020-census-citizenship-question-youll-still-be-counted

STANV said:
This is what I found.
https://www.npr.org/2018/04/19/603629576/skipping-the-2020-census-citizenship-question-youll-still-be-counted

Good to know.

I'm still not sure I agree that refusing to answer is a good idea.

It’s all about intimidating the undocumented from responding at all. Failing to answer one question won’t change a thing.