California is getting prepared for the 2020 census, and that includes encouragement of its illegal alien population to participate. The diverse community was not pleased to hear that the Supreme Court appeared likely to approve the use of a citizenship question.

Below, the Los Angeles Times gave its census story front-page coverage on Monday, picturing Mayans who may speak indigenous languages such as Yucatec, Zapotec and K’iche’ and often speak Spanish as a second language.

Breitbart’s report on the legal and historic background to the issue noted that “the census started asking about citizenship in 1820 in the early years of the republic, and kept doing so as recently as 1950.” So there is plenty of precedent, and anyway it’s long past time to know who lives in this country.

Some California illegals say they will avoid the census, a decision that could cost the state big time — Sacramento got over $100 billion in federal funds in 2016, and every resident not counted means the state loses $2,000 annually in funding.

In addition, a serious undercount could cause California to lose a seat or two in the House of Representatives — wouldn’t that be a shame?

On the other hand, fewer federal dollars means Governor Newsom will probably demand a tax increase from employed Californians to pay for all the expensive welfare that poor unskilled illegal aliens require.