Will the Census Count Illegal Immigrants?

Last week, I told you about a ridiculous FEMA firefighter grant that was awarded to ACORN in Louisiana. Because of this website’s coverage of the issue and your action, the story grew, and FEMA finally made a statement saying that they would permanently withhold that grant from ACORN. Thank you for raising awareness of this clear waste of first responder funding that could go to countless needy volunteer firefighter organizations or other first responders.

This week, I wanted to make you aware of a growing concern about the U.S. Census and illegal aliens and how the two could drastically affect congressional apportionment and possibly your own state’s congressional representation.

In the past, some states have included illegal aliens in the collection of census data, and this has often resulted in the allocation of additional congressional seats to those states – at the expense of other states that lose seats because of the skewed data.

Illegal aliens shouldn’t be included for the purposes of determining representation in Congress. I don’t believe that this is what our founding fathers had in mind when they laid out our current system of representation.

Illegal immigration is a very real and significant concern for our country. We shouldn’t let these states be rewarded for skirting our federal laws.

That’s why this week, I introduced an amendment to the Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations bill that would require questions in the census regarding citizenship and immigration status. The amendment is, of course, designed to help us identify illegal aliens, primarily to prevent states from counting them for the purposes of determining population levels and other data associated with the census.

The data collected during the census is used by Congress to determine multiple issues of importance beyond apportionment, including government program spending levels. Essentially, my amendment would prevent funding from being used to collect census data that does not include a question regarding United States citizenship and immigration status.

It’s a very simple and direct amendment that can help us bring about a very positive change. It obviously won’t help us identify all illegal aliens, but it’s a step in the right direction.