The lights may be out, but that doesn’t necessarily mean no one is home.
The federal government may be shut down, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the wheels of justice are suspended.
Lost in the myriad breathless headlines about Executive-level temper tantrums and the spy novel that is the Oval Office is a story that will have a profound effect on Queens.
A federal court in New York on Tuesday ruled against the Trump administration and its plan to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census. Citing it as “unlawful,” the judge ordered the removal of “Is this person a citizen of the United States?” from all forms of the upcoming national enumeration.
The decennial Census determines an area’s representation in the U.S. House of Representatives, as well as how much federal funding it will receive for schools, infrastructure, health services and more.
“The Trump administration’s plan to sabotage the 2020 Census by adding a last-minute citizenship question has been deeply troubling,” U.S. Rep. Grace Meng (D-Flushing) said. “Since last year, I have continuously warned that asking respondents if they are citizens would likely decrease response rates and as a result produce an inaccurate and incomplete count that would have a decade’s worth of consequences. It would impact the distribution of federal resources and the number of Congressional districts that each state receives. This was a politically-motivated question against immigrant communities that we now know was pushed by former White House strategist Steve Bannon. It deserves to never see the light of day.”
Last year, Meng called for the citizenship question to be precluded from the census. In May, Meng andRep. José Serrano (D-Bronx) introduced a provision that sought to restrict funding for the inclusion of the question. Both Meng and Serrano are members of the House Appropriations Committee, the panel that funds the U.S. Census Bureau. Meng also personally urged U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to abandon the citizenship question plan, and called for an investigation after he lied to her about its origins.
“The legal battle is likely far from over, and Queens will continue to speak out against the proposed Census citizenship question for as long as there is active litigation. But today’s court ruling is a tremendous victory in the fight against a reckless policy targeting our thriving immigrant communities in Queens and across the country,” Borough President Melinda Katz said on Tuesday. “Including a citizenship question would undermine the goal of the Census: a complete count of all persons living in the United States. Here in Queens, a borough of nearly 2.4 million people of all races, ethnicities and faiths, an undercount would lead to fewer federal dollars for countless vital programs and initiatives.”
Katz noted that in August she submitted a comment in the Federal Register blasting the citizenship question.
“It is more important than ever for an area like Queens to be as fully counted as possible,” she said.
As Meng noted, the Supreme Court will likely have the final say on the issue.
Bottom line: “We don’t need a citizenship question—we need an accurate census count!”
Amen, Rep. Meng.
