Hey, the Census Can Be Fun! WNYC‘s Brian Lehrer Proves It on a Show on Hard-To-Count Immigrants
Amid talk of statistics and maps of hard-to-count neighborhoods, guests on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show find time to show a little humor.
Tag: 2010 Census
Reporter’s Notebook: The 2010 Census and the Challenge of Undocumented Immigrant Households
Fi2W launches its project on the Census with a radio piece and a live conversation on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show on hard-to-reach immigrant households.
After Yearlong Campaign to Reassure Immigrants, Census Effort Still Faces Doubts
The Census Bureau has worked to convince immigrants that taking part in the 2010 count is in their best interest. But warnings that they will go undercounted persist.
Despite Huge Government Effort, Census Count May Miss Many, Including Immigrants
The biggest advertising campaign of the new year isn’t selling cars, beer or burgers. The $340-million effort, which made its debut with a TV spot on the Golden Globe Awards last Sunday, encourages everyone in the U.S. to be counted in this year’s census.
2010 Census at Risk of Inaccuracy Due to Immigrants’ Reluctance to Participate
Against an unsettling background of immigration raids and deportations, the U.S. Census Bureau expects to have a hard time convincing close to 12 million undocumented immigrants to take part in its population count next year.
Fight Not Over on Census Amendment That Would Require Question on Citizenship
The fight is not over in the Senate over Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter’s proposal to amend the 2010 Census forms to add a question on citizenship. In a demonstration of what the argument is really about, groups on all sides of the immigration debate are urging their constituencies to press senators on the measure.
The amendment, which Vitter defends as a way of fairly apportioning Congressional representation to states, has not been voted on yet and it’s not clear if it will be. It would be added to a budget bill for fiscal year 2010 for the departments of Commerce, Justice and some federal programs.
Vitter has been accused by Latino congressmen and pro-immigration advocates of trying to politicize the census and of not-so-subtly playing to the conservative base on the highly controversial issue of immigration. Whether that was his goal or not, it has clearly been achieved.
Senator's Proposal to Not Count Undocumented Immigrants Rejected by Census Bureau
After the Census Bureau said his initiative would prevent the 2010 Census from being completed on time, Sen. David Vitter (R.-La.) has partially backtracked on his proposal that the Census questionnaire inquire about each person’s immigration status.
“Vitter agreed to drop language that would require the census short form to ask every person about their immigration status,” Nola.com’s Jonathan Tilove reported on Thursday. The senator now wants the form to ask about respondents’ citizenship instead, said another Louisiana news site.
The senator’s shift came after the Census Bureau said that it was basically too late to make any changes, because most of the forms had already been printed, and adding questions would cost hundreds of millions of dollars for additional training for workers and software programming.
Census Reversal: Republican Senator Wants Bureau to Boycott Immigrants
First, some immigrant activists proposed a boycott of the 2010 Census to show displeasure with immigration policies centered on enforcement and to demand comprehensive reform. Now, a U.S. senator is calling for the Census Bureau to not count undocumented immigrants.
U.S. Sen. David Vitter.
The move by Sen. David Vitter, a Republican from Louisiana, comes as the Bureau has been reaching out to ethnic media and immigrant communities for months to ensure that the nation’s population is counted as accurately as possible, in fulfillment of its mandate.
Vitter’s office announced in a press release that he introduced an amendment to an appropriations bill “that would require questions in the census regarding citizenship and immigration status.”
The amendment “would also prevent states from counting illegal aliens for the purposes of determining population levels and other data associated with the census.”
Census Representatives Ask New York Ethnic Media for Help With Population Count
From left: NYC immigrant affairs commissioner Guillermo Linares, NYC Census 2010 director Stacey Cumberbatch, and NY Community Media Alliance director Juana Ponce de Leon. (Photo: Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska.)
Census representatives made a plea to New York ethnic journalists to help them spread the message that every New Yorker will benefit from the 2010 Census, even undocumented immigrants. City officials and immigrant organizations supported the initiative, during a press briefing held Tuesday at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.
“Census data determine the number of delegates the city gets in Congress and the State Legislature, as well as the size of each of our 51 City Council districts,” said Stacey Cumberbatch, New York City director for Census 2010. “But they also determine how much federal funding New York City gets each year. This money funds things like health care, housing, education or senior services.”
Cumberbatch told the few dozen journalists at the briefing that in 2007 New York City got $22 billion (or $2,700 per person) to fund its various programs. That amount was calculated based on Census data using a simple equation: the more people counted, the more funding appropriated.
Pastors Want The Undocumented To Boycott Census Unless Immigration Reform Passes First
By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor
Miguel Rivera, president of CONLAMIC, calls for a Census boycott. (Photo: El Diario/La Prensa)
It may sound counterintuitive, but despite all the talk about ensuring that underrepresented minorities are counted in the 2010 Census, some Hispanic activists are calling for undocumented immigrants to avoid being counted next year.
A group of Evangelical leaders, the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders (CONLAMIC), is calling for immigrants to boycott the census “until Congress and the new administration pass a comprehensive solution to immigration reform that includes a path to legalization for an estimated 12 million undocumented people.”
The calculation behind the organization’s call is that cities and towns need their population to be counted accurately in order to receive federal funds for public services. The coalition’s president, Rev. Miguel Rivera, also says census information has been used in the past to target the undocumented population.
“Our church leaders have witnessed misuse of otherwise benign Census population data by state and local public officials in their efforts to pass and enact laws that assist in the perpetration of civil rights violations and abuses against undocumented workers and families,” Rivera said in a statement.