Will the Census Count Illegal Immigrants?
by Sen. David Vitter (R-LA)Last week, I told you about a ridiculous FEMA firefighter grant that was awarded to ACORN in Louisiana. Because of this website’s coverage of the issue and your action, the story grew, and FEMA finally made a statement saying that they would permanently withhold that grant from ACORN. Thank you for raising awareness of this clear waste of first responder funding that could go to countless needy volunteer firefighter organizations or other first responders.
This week, I wanted to make you aware of a growing concern about the U.S. Census and illegal aliens and how the two could drastically affect congressional apportionment and possibly your own state’s congressional representation.
In the past, some states have included illegal aliens in the collection of census data, and this has often resulted in the allocation of additional congressional seats to those states – at the expense of other states that lose seats because of the skewed data.
Illegal aliens shouldn’t be included for the purposes of determining representation in Congress. I don’t believe that this is what our founding fathers had in mind when they laid out our current system of representation.
Illegal immigration is a very real and significant concern for our country. We shouldn’t let these states be rewarded for skirting our federal laws.
That’s why this week, I introduced an amendment to the Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations bill that would require questions in the census regarding citizenship and immigration status. The amendment is, of course, designed to help us identify illegal aliens, primarily to prevent states from counting them for the purposes of determining population levels and other data associated with the census.
The data collected during the census is used by Congress to determine multiple issues of importance beyond apportionment, including government program spending levels. Essentially, my amendment would prevent funding from being used to collect census data that does not include a question regarding United States citizenship and immigration status.
It’s a very simple and direct amendment that can help us bring about a very positive change. It obviously won’t help us identify all illegal aliens, but it’s a step in the right direction.
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54 Comments
[...] Over at Big Government, David Vitter explains how illegals are often counted in the Census, and his attempt to stop [...]
Si.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by AJ_Jones. AJ_Jones said: Sen. Vitter – Will the Census Count Illegal Immigrants? http://is.gd/45dKT [...]
That’s why this week, I introduced an amendment to the Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations bill that would require questions in the census regarding citizenship and immigration status. (Courtesy of Sen. David Vitter)
That's great as long there are no Opt Out check box that says, "Perfer not to answer at this time", like some forms I have seen.
"Will the census count illegal immigrants?"
Why bother!
They can try.
But how many illegal immigrants will go along with being identified and counted? ZERO.
How many people will consider any number the census comes up with significant? ZERO.
Personally I think our tax dollars could be better spent.
Dave wants to know if escorts can be counted twice.
Compliance with the census runs over 60% and under 70%. Most people believe every one cooperates. I am sure in training they will tell the thugs no one has not filled out forms.
Cooperation will be firm this year if they give out free chicago Olympics 2016 t-shirts.
[...] Big Government by Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) Last week, I told you about a ridiculous FEMA firefighter grant that [...]
Not counting illegal aliens.
So I guess that means that Obama will be excluded from the 2010 census.
Where's The Birth Certificate
No surprise that the Obama administration wanted to put the census under direct White House supervision. Gerrymandering is sapping the life out of our democracy. Our congress critters have crafted safe seats for themselves. An article in the WSJ today had this eyecatching reality:
"The single biggest bulwark Democrats have is the simple fact that, largely because congressional districts increasingly are drawn to be friendly to one party or the other, it remains extremely difficult to unseat incumbent members of Congress. In the past four election cycles, the re-election rate for incumbents of both parties in House races has been 94.3%, 94.1%, 97.8% and 96%. In Senate races, the rate has been 83.3%, 79.3%, 96.2% and 85.7%."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB12549512315227169...
See now why it is next to impossible to unseat the worst pigs-at-the-trough in Congress.
You bet adding warm illegal bodies to the census roles to change the composition of districts is the objective. Shamefully the press while our civil society is being dismantled cheers on the party that cheats to stay in power using whatever tools it can from ACORN to the coming census.
America has survived periods of widespread corruption in the past, but, then we had a press that looked out for our interests. And they wonder why we loathe them?
the answer, of course is Yes…
They have absolutely EVERY intention of counting any Tom, Dick or Pedro they can find. Get 'em on the welfare rolls. Crash the system.
Alinsky would approve if he could. However, he is quite occupied in Hades as we speak…
Sen Vitters, thanks for your efforts on behalf of legal, tax paying citizens everywhere.
You already know the answer to the illegal alien question. The Federal Government, La Raza, ACORN and the rest of the "community organizations" have been working on this for years now and will attempt to maximize their numbers counted under the census using any means necessary.
Legal means or not, it is just a means to an end.
The end being that of one party rule and the finalizing of the Government / Democratic Party union.
You better get your fellow Republicans off their asses and start doing about the massive fraud and corruption being perpetrated on the American people immediately or you are going to lose this country for good and the loss will be not just to American citizens, but the world as a whole.
We have had enough of the Washington BS Senator. Can you hear us ok?
Sen Vitters, thanks for your efforts on behalf of legal, tax paying citizens everywhere and the courage to speak out.
You already know the answer to the illegal alien question. The Federal Government, La Raza, ACORN and the rest of the "community organizations" have been working on this for years now and will attempt to maximize their numbers counted under the census using any means necessary.
Legal means or not, it is just a means to an end.
The end being that of one party rule and the finalizing of the Government / Democratic Party union.
You better get your fellow Republicans off their asses and start doing about the massive fraud and corruption being perpetrated on the American people immediately or you are going to lose this country for good and the loss will be not just to American citizens, but the world as a whole.
We have had enough of the Washington BS Senator. Can you hear us ok?
there are tons of things you can use to criticize the president. he's been elected. he's the president. stop with the birth certificate stuff.
If you read the 2010 Training Manual (or shall I say, "Manuel?)- you will see that the language is specifically targetted at Spanish speaking census takers and prospective people to be counted.
It's all about Mr. and Mrs. Hernandez, Gonzalez and one lone "Jones."
"Illegal immigration is a very real and significant concern for our country. We shouldn’t let these states be rewarded for skirting our federal laws."
I take offense to this. We are the only state that has a Sherriff ( yes, Arpio) that actively rounds up these illegals. Then we have Napolitano tying his hands and takin this away from him. It's time the government took this seriously. Wouldn't it save us money (welfare, healthcare) if we did not fund these people?
Obama is an American citizen, there are multiple things wrong with Obama, but he's a citizen. The only question his birth certificate would answer would be whether or not he's naturally born in America or not.
However, the administration has already spent over a million dollars in legal fees to avoid paying $15 for an authorized copy of the birth certificate. There are only two reasons I can fathom for this…
A) There's something Obama's birth certificate would reveal that he doesn't want revealed
B) He's using the "birther" issue to distract people with a red-herring while he burns the country down around us.
The 9-12 march has shown that we're awake and organized, but we're still being ignored. I guess organizing isn't enough, you have to bribe… er… contribute to the politician to get their attention.
I believe ACORN has advised that escorts register as "performing arts" performers.
And his aunt!
NO-Bama is not a natural born citizen, his father was NOT a US citizen….end of story. He should NOT be the POTUS.
impeach him, deport his aunt.
I would like to contribute my foot in the ass of any politician that talks about immigration reform as if the system were unfair to the poor and downtrodden immigrant who is just looking to America to make a new life for themselves and their family. BS, I say. That is why about 1/3 of all convicts in California are illegals. We had an incident recently in San Fran-psycho where an illegal MS-13 member killed a dad and his 2 sons (Bologna family), and their dip$H!T of a DA Kamala Harris would not pursue the death penalty. If there was ever a time to wheel out ole Sparky, this was it. Not in a utopian society like SanFran though.Ughh!
Jailin' Joe will spit in Jan Nan's eye, and the country will thank him for it.
Go Joe!
Oh, It seems I am not the only one out here.
I vote B. Even if he did not have a birth cert., he is the Prez, he could have any number of useful idiots cook one up for him. He keeps the "birthers" around to point to and say how crazy all Republicans are. Sorry folks, but he is using you as a political tool, nothing more, whats a million dollars compared to a chip in the big political game?
Apportionment refers to persons not citizens. Good try, Sen. Vitter, but you should read the Constitution a little more closely.
The Census Bureau operates with the same mindset as ACORN. They are both run by anti-war activists from the 60's and 70's. The only thing that matters to them, is the body count……..
Hmmm. If we are going back to our founding fathers and the census, maybe we should count illegals at three fifths?
"Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers,which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons"
Okay, as an originalist, there is no choice on this one. They have to be counted. For representation purposes the original constitution says representation "shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons." And of course “unfree” persons are still counted, but only as 3/5 of a person (their code word for slaves). Women, for instance, were counted from the beginning even though they didn't have the right to vote until over a century later.
Now the fourteenth amendment alters that a little, in section 2. It says that if the right to vote “is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.”
(continued…)
(continued…)
This was designed to address a situation after the civil war. Before the civil war, slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person for representation purposes. This was considered an outrage in the north because it meant that the slave would be counted for representation but not allowed to vote. So the power of the very people that were oppressing them were increased by their presence. After the civil war, they would be counted as 5/5 of a person, but still wouldn’t be allowed to vote in the south, so they put in this provision that said, more or less, if you exclude someone from the vote, then you can’t count them in representation.
But what is clear in these rules is that you have to be a citizen to trigger the penalty, which only makes sense—if you are not a citizen, a state shouldn’t be punished for not letting you vote.
(continued…)
(continued…)
So this is the language of the constitution we are stuck with. And if we are going to decry the left for just “making stuff up” when talking about the constitution, we have to be willing to stick with the constitution even when it incentivizes behavior we don’t like.
So applied to taking the census, they need to count everyone, citizen or not, legal immigrant or not. It sucks, but there you go.
But here is a pop quiz for you all. Where does it say that congress has the right to ask you probing and intimate questions in that census? Ah-ha! It doesn’t. When I was filling out the census form in 2000 I was so offended, I marked “I refuse to answer” on most of it. Nothing ever happened to me. They have a right to know how many people live in your house. I don’t see how they have the right to ask anything else.
(continued…)
You better believe it's significant. Those will be used to pad numbers in Democratic districts and win more money and power for them. Damn right it's significant.
Maybe a 3/5th's Compromise?
JUST KIDDING!!!!!
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Prefer not to answer? Well then I'd prefer you not be counted.
Most of those immigrants are sending money back to their families south of the border – in other words, that money VANISHES from our economy.
Just remember, that you are not required to answer any question other than "how many people live here?"
Add all the questions you want to the "census questionnaire", but don't ever think it can be enforced.
You have any substantiation for your claim that the Census Bureau is run by former antiwar activists? Or did it just sound good to you?
I wish that California had somebody with the guts to do what he's doing in Arizona. We have plenty of desert land where we could build tent prisons like in Arizona, instead of the overpriced palaces my tax dollars pay for.
They won't be asked for ID – so what do they have to lose? They'll be counted.
Keep fighting, Senator; we're behind you. Maybe the insanity in D.C. can be stopped. We can hope, anyway, and each do our part.
Here is an idea. Make the illegals THINK that they are going to be counted with accompanying rhetoric about how that will give the Democrats more power because the illegals will vote (illegally) for them, blah blah blah. Set up a fake front organization that pretends it is very liberal. Give them the contract to do the census. Have the "liberal" census takers ask about residency status, WINK WINK, so the illegals will be comfortable telling the truth about it.
Then the day after the census is taken arrest every one of them and send them back to their own country.
Good luck getting that one through. Wouldn't want the Dems main constituency to get "alien"ated. I made a funny. Anyway, the main reason in counting the illegals is to get more social program money to the state in question. That in turn increases the Democratic (or Republican, you know who you are) power base by promising more social services, which brings more votes. I would love to see this particular tactic abolished, but it will not be because it grows the size of government, and isn't that the ultimate goal for all politicians(present company excluded Senator, you rock by the way)? To get more power? I just want to say, being a native Califormian, I wish I had representation in Congress with the stones to do what Sen. Vitter is doing, but the La Raza types have this state pretty much in toe. Depressing.
Ya, good luck getting people who broke the law to get here, to answer a question truthfully as to how many of them are here illegally. I live in San Diego and I can't get the illegal immigrant family that lives next door to me to reciprocate an "hola" with a hand wave. They look at me as though I'm standing there in my underwear and then hurry back into their house. O.K. sometimes I am standing there in my underwear but that's totally beside the point. Huh, it just dawned on me that maybe they don't speak spanish?
You are 100% wrong. You go ask an illegal what they do when a cop ask's them if they are a citizen. They say no b/c they know by NOT being a citizen they get all kinds of perks and are not subject to the law like we are. They are PROUD of the fact that they are squating on our country and we can't and won't do anything about it……….
hola' ! yo este un Americano, si ~Norte' Americano~para el Estados Unidos!
donde estan Officina de Welfare y Servicios Gratis? gracias.
Right now, Baucus is trying to use the Congressional Budget
Office report on his bill to get enough Senators on board
for passage on Tuesday.
This is key because once two committees pass a bill, Harry
Reid can use his procedural power to merge the bills and
move his revised version (the one Obama and the Democrats
really want) directly to the Senate floor.
Heritage Foundation is reporting that Reid will replace the
text of an existing unrelated bill with his version of
ObamaCare and force a floor vote. Since his version will
be crafted behind closed doors, the public will have
little or no time to review before a Senate floor vote!
Then, Nancy Pelosi would take the same bill back to the House,
pass it quickly and send it to Obama. With blitzkrieg speed
we will have ObamaCare passed and signed into law!
But there's one catch…
The Left must get the bill through the Finance Committee on Tuesday.
We literally need to shut down the Senate between now and
Tuesday with faxes, phone calls, emails… everything we can
muster!
I want YOU to have the same information that Senators have.
Here's a link so you can download the CBO "preliminary analysis" that
Baucus is manipulating for his purposes. Once you look at it you'll
realize that the Democrats are trying to hide the fact that ObamaCare
expands government and increases taxes by HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS.
Go here to download the CBO report:
http://www.grassfire.net/r.asp?U=22042&CID=12...
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How about unfreezing the 435 members of congress you two-faced lying fraud! Read the Constitution! You know exactly what I'm talking about! You're no Republican! You traitor!
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He needs some real facts.