New Census Form Simplier but Spurs Citizenship Controversy
CENSUS
New Hampshire Union Leader
Joe Markman
Boston University Washington News Service
09/23/09
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Census Bureau may soon have new friends among privacy advocatesand new enemies among those who favor asking immigrants about their legal status.
Next year’s decennial census includes 10 questions for each member of each household in the country, and should take only 10 minutes to complete, according to the bureau. In 2000, one out of every six households received a form with more than 50 questions.
Bureau director Robert M. Groves said at a press conference Wednesday that the newly simplified survey should increase responses and save money by decreasing the need for in-person follow-up interviews.
Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy at the nonprofit Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, said that in recent decades the census survey had grown to include questions that some people consider extraneous or invasive. The 2000 long-form questionnaire, for instance, included questions about education, work history and home finances – topics not covered on next year’s form.
“The less information requested the better from a privacy standpoint,” Stephens said.
Of particular interest to some conservatives in Congress and the public is the lack of a question about residency status. Sen. Robert F. Bennett, R-Utah, has introduced legislation that would document legal and illegal residents on the survey, but Groves said it was too late to include such a question.
“That train has left for the 2010 census,” Groves said.
Groves said that he constantly fights partisan pressure, but that federal law prohibits his agency’s getting into the “political fray.”
“This is an organization that is explicitly apolitical,” Groves said.
Bennett’s spokeswoman said that it will be a challenge at this point, but that the senator will continue to work to include residence status to determine reapportionment of the House of Representatives.
One way would be to get population figures for reapportionment from the Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey of 3 million people that includes a legal residency question, rather than the 2010 census numbers. But that strategy is unlikely to succeed on legal grounds, said Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
“I think the court would look at the American Community Survey with a little more hesitancy because you’d have to extrapolate the data,” von Spakovsky said.
Grove’s status update on the 2010 census came on the heels of the 2008 American Community Survey, which keeps tabs on annual changes in population, income and other demographic data.
According to the survey, New Hampshire’s demographics changed little from 2007 to 2008. The state’s total population remained steady at a little over 1.3 million. The percentage of foreign-born residents stayed at 5 percent and the high school graduation rate hovered above 90 percent.
Groves said the Internet would finally become a census tool in 2020, when the bureau expects to offer follow-up questions online. In the meantime, the bureau plans to hire 1.4 million temporary employees nationwide, many of whom will be knocking on the doors of those who don’t return their questionnaires.
In 2000, one-third of the country’s population did not mail back forms. The federal stimulus package included $1 billion for marketing efforts aimed at driving up the number of returned questionnaires.
###
