Is Politics Driving 2020 Census to Undercount New Jersey Residents? – NJ Spotlight
New Jersey Counts project director Patricia Williamson warns the state’s hard-to-count cities, places with high minority and immigrant populations, still lag by 20% or more in filling the 2020 census. Many are not submitting questionnaires because they’re afraid.
“A lot of people think if they put their information down, that they will have the IRS come after them, or that ICE will come,” Williamson said.
That cannot happen, she says, because census data is secure. But uncertainty lingers after the Trump administration tried and failed to put a citizenship question on the census form. President Donald Trump followed up recently by ordering the count to end Sept. 30, chopping a month off the Oct. 31 deadline that had been extended due to the pandemic. Advocates charge the move will cause an undercount of residents.
“This is not something that can be rushed. There’s a reason the census bureau asked for more time and the shortening of the timeline is a political move that threatens the accuracy of the census count. And the responsibility of the count rests with Congress,” said Peter Chen, policy counsel for Advocates for Children of New Jersey.
On Thursday, 500 advocacy groups from the nationwide Census Project sent a letter to Senate leaders asking Congress to restore the extra weeks needed to count and process census data.
What’s been happening to the census is the result of politics mostly, according to NJ Spotlight Editor-at-Large Colleen O’Dea. “Things have become more and more polarized, and I think we see the polarization just in general, right? It’s hard for anything to get through Congress. We’re just seeing that spill over into the census,” she said. “I think if there’s pressure brought by folks like a Marco Rubio or a Ted Cruz from Texas, that is going to carry a lot more weight.”
The latest census response rate is 63%. New Jersey hit 65%, with Hunterdon leading the counties at 74.7%. Cape May has the lowest response rate at 29.9%. It’s also been a struggle in urban counties like Hudson, Essex and Passaic.
Census determines federal funding, seats in Congress
Population, based on the census, draws federal aid dollars, like grants to help counties cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Nine counties — like Bergen, Hudson, Essex, the larger counties — that have gotten money specifically from the feds for COVID,” O’Dea said. “But you have 12 counties who didn’t because they don’t have a population of 500,000 or more.”
“This is every program that you can think of that receives federal funds. It’s schools. It’s roads. It’s hospitals. It’s colleges. It’s special education. It’s Medicaid. Every program that you can think of that benefits kids and families is funded though formulas that are based on census counts,” Chen said.
The census also determines how many congressional representatives a state gets. In late July, the president fired off a memo to block undocumented immigrants from being counted in the census, writing: “States adopting policies that encourage illegal aliens to enter this country and that hobble Federal efforts to enforce the immigration laws passed by the Congress should not be rewarded with greater representation …”
New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal fired back, saying, “The President’s plainly illegal action not only dehumanizes members of our community but also seeks to punish states like New Jersey with larger immigrant populations.”
New Jersey has joined 20 other states suing to block the effect of Trump’s memo.
“We’re a much more diverse state than we were in 2010 and we need to have a fair and accurate count,” Williamson said.
Places like Jersey City are now taking census forms door-to-door in a full-court press toward a full count.