http://pr.thinkprogress.org/ANTI-IMMIGRANT FERVOR: The 14th Amendment requires that representatives be apportioned according to an indiscriminate population count of "the whole number of persons in each State." Moreover, the data is used to allocate federal funding. Thus, non-citizens, children, ex-felons, legal residents, and several other non-voters are included in Census apportionment data in order to paint an accurate portrait of a state's demographic makeup and population density that's key to effective and adequate representation. However, anti-immigrant groups such as Americans for Legal Immigration (ALIPAC) don't want everyone in the U.S. to be counted. ALIPAC recently started a campaign to frighten undocumented immigrants from filling out the survey. An ALIPAC press release stated that "
llegal immigrants are being targeted with taxpayer funded ad in Spanish encouraging them to fill out the Census, so they will get more taxpayer resources and have more political power." "We want Congress to take action now to authorize and require the use of census data collected to identify illegal aliens, exclude them from the census count for tax resources and Congressional redistricting, and to detain and deport those found in violation of our immigration laws," said ALIPAC William Gheen.
TRYING TO REPAIR THE DAMAGE: The Wall Street Journal reported this week that according to Census data, "some of the most conservative states have among the lowest response rates so far" which now has many Republicans worried. In fact, Texas has one of the lowest rates of return in the country, which is perhaps why Rove is now appearing in the public service announcement "designed to convince people to mail back their 2010 census forms by the end of the month." And Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry (NC) recently called out the right-wing smear campaign surrounding the Census. "hat worries me is blatant misinformation coming from otherwise well-meaning conservatives," McHenry said. "Anyone who tells you that this year's census is unconstitutional and that you are not required to fill out the form completely is flat out wrong. ... That argument doesn't stand up to either history or the Constitution's text." The congressman told the Journal that it is everyone's "constitutional duty to respond" to the Census. "It's often difficult for conservatives to separate overall government intervention from a question as simple as the census," he said.
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