It was announced last Tuesday that a citizenship question would be added in the 2020 Census. The announcement did not go over well. Some, like the Justice Department and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross who wanted the question, did support its inclusion stating that it would help prevent voting mismanagement whereas several others disregarded it due to a high possibility of it resulting in a miscount of participants.
A prediction came over from Robert J. Shapiro, who was undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs during the 2000 Census, that more than 24 million people may refuse to take part in the 2020 census because of the question inclusion and the fact that the Justice Department is involved in the request will scare people. According to Robert’s prediction, there are around 6.8 million illegal immigrants who will skirt the count altogether. He also predicted that out of the 8.8 million legal residents, half with illegal immigrants in their household would also skirt the count while the other half would lie that the illegal immigrants are legal. Millions of others who have mismanaged their student loan payments would be wary of filling the census forms accurately due to the fear of government tracking, even though the Census Bureau does not share individual answers with law enforcement authorities. These over 24 million people are in addition to the expected “normal undercount” which happens ever census.
Mr. Shapiro has also said that it could cost California and Texas seats in Congress and Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia would suffer a loss in funding from government assistance programs. He has called the question inclusion “dangerous”.
