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The citizenship question is “new” and “controversial.”

There is nothing new in asking about citizenship on the census, and it’s only controversial to CNN. With a handful of exceptions, a question about citizenship (or naturalization) has appeared on every census since its inception in 1790.

For the first few decades of our new country, when American citizenship was in flux, the census counted only free persons and slaves. It was not until 1820 that the first question about “number of foreigners not naturalized” appeared. Since that time, a naturalization or citizenship question has appeared 14 times, most recently in 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000. The last census in 2010 was the first not to ask about citizenship since 1960. What’s new about that?

It is illegal to ask about citizenship on the census.

Come on. I hope you didn’t hear this from an elected official like, say, California’s Attorney General Xavier Becerra. Then again, maybe you did because he said, “Including a citizenship question on the 2020 census is not just a bad idea — it is illegal.” He also said, “The Constitution requires the government to conduct an ‘actual enumeration’ of the total population, regardless of citizenship status.”

I don’t know if Mr. Becerra is ignorant or disingenuous, but the words “actual enumeration” in Article 1, Section 2 of the United States Constitution indicate “actual” as in “when it takes place,” which the Founders designated as “within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years.” They distinguished “actual enumeration” from provisional enumeration whereby they allotted representatives to the various states before the actual enumeration could take place.

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“until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.”

Xavier Becerra aside, the Census Bureau itself spells out exactly why questions beyond a simple count are Constitutional. “As early as 1870, the Supreme Court characterized as unquestionable the power of Congress to require both an enumeration and the collection of statistics in the census.”

We must count illegal aliens because the census is designed to count every person, not every citizen.

Evidence used to advance this argument is the fact that early censuses counted slaves, who were not citizens. Slaves were counted as “persons” within the jurisdiction of the United States and therefore enumerated in the census for the purpose of apportioning Congressional representation. The analogy is then made with illegal aliens, who are “persons” within the jurisdiction of the United States. Illegal aliens are not citizens either, yet, the argument goes, they should be counted like other non-citizens in our history have been.

There is a big difference, however, between “persons” entitled to reside in these United States and “persons” illegally residing in these United States. Slaves were legal residents of the country whereas illegal aliens are not, and as Donald Trump would say, if we don’t distinguish our legal from our illegal residents, we don’t have a country.

We should count everyone who is legally entitled to reside within the jurisdiction of the United States, both citizens and permanent residents, for the purpose of allocating federal funds. If, however, they don’t vote, neither permanent residents nor illegal aliens should be calculated into our apportionment for Congressional representation. That privilege accompanies only the obligations of citizenship.

Asking about citizenship is an attack on our representative democracy.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder—now chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee—said, “The addition of a citizenship question to the census questionnaire is a direct attack on our representative democracy.”

First, see Myth #1 above. This isn’t the “addition” of a citizenship question; it is the continuation of an occasionally absent citizenship question. Second, let’s define “representative democracy.” Representative democracy is a type of democracy where elected officials represent a group of people. All that “no taxation without representation” stuff.

There is an egregious example of taxation without representation, and it isn’t illegal aliens: it’s the residents of Washington D.C. Have you ever heard of the senators from D.C.? That’s because there aren’t any. Some 700,000 Americans have no elected representatives in Congress. If we’re going to fix the problem, let’s fix it for American citizens before we get all generous with illegal aliens. Which, let’s not ever do since they are not entitled to representative power since they are not entitled to be here.

There is a direct attack on our representative democracy, but it comes from not asking the citizenship question. The Constitution apportions one representative for every 30,000 persons. If California is chock full of illegal aliens who are counted just like everyone else, then California gets a whole lot more congressional representation as a result. That makes the voters in California more powerful than the voters in a state without as much illegal immigration. That’s, what do you call it, not fair.

The Trump administration wants the citizenship question added because it is anti-immigrant.

As discussed above, no one is “adding” anything; it’s a question that has been there in some form or another throughout our history, as recently as 2000. You can believe Donald Trump is anti-immigrant only if you believe our country throughout its history has been anti-immigrant, and that’s just hogwash. You won’t get a single decent American to disagree that we are a nation of immigrants. But Donald Trump—like a lot of us—distinguishes between legal and illegal immigration. We are a nation of immigrants but not a nation of illegal immigrants. The real myth is that there is no difference between the two.

The citizenship question is “new” and “controversial.”

There is nothing new in asking about citizenship on the census, and it’s only controversial to CNN. With a handful of exceptions, a question about citizenship (or naturalization) has appeared on every census since its inception in 1790.

For the first few decades of our new country, when American citizenship was in flux, the census counted only free persons and slaves. It was not until 1820 that the first question about “number of foreigners not naturalized” appeared. Since that time, a naturalization or citizenship question has appeared 14 times, most recently in 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000. The last census in 2010 was the first not to ask about citizenship since 1960. What’s new about that?

It is illegal to ask about citizenship on the census.

Come on. I hope you didn’t hear this from an elected official like, say, California’s Attorney General Xavier Becerra. Then again, maybe you did because he said, “Including a citizenship question on the 2020 census is not just a bad idea — it is illegal.” He also said, “The Constitution requires the government to conduct an ‘actual enumeration’ of the total population, regardless of citizenship status.”

I don’t know if Mr. Becerra is ignorant or disingenuous, but the words “actual enumeration” in Article 1, Section 2 of the United States Constitution indicate “actual” as in “when it takes place,” which the Founders designated as “within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years.” They distinguished “actual enumeration” from provisional enumeration whereby they allotted representatives to the various states before the actual enumeration could take place.

“until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.”

Xavier Becerra aside, the Census Bureau itself spells out exactly why questions beyond a simple count are Constitutional. “As early as 1870, the Supreme Court characterized as unquestionable the power of Congress to require both an enumeration and the collection of statistics in the census.”

We must count illegal aliens because the census is designed to count every person, not every citizen.

Evidence used to advance this argument is the fact that early censuses counted slaves, who were not citizens. Slaves were counted as “persons” within the jurisdiction of the United States and therefore enumerated in the census for the purpose of apportioning Congressional representation. The analogy is then made with illegal aliens, who are “persons” within the jurisdiction of the United States. Illegal aliens are not citizens either, yet, the argument goes, they should be counted like other non-citizens in our history have been.

There is a big difference, however, between “persons” entitled to reside in these United States and “persons” illegally residing in these United States. Slaves were legal residents of the country whereas illegal aliens are not, and as Donald Trump would say, if we don’t distinguish our legal from our illegal residents, we don’t have a country.

We should count everyone who is legally entitled to reside within the jurisdiction of the United States, both citizens and permanent residents, for the purpose of allocating federal funds. If, however, they don’t vote, neither permanent residents nor illegal aliens should be calculated into our apportionment for Congressional representation. That privilege accompanies only the obligations of citizenship.

Asking about citizenship is an attack on our representative democracy.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder—now chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee—said, “The addition of a citizenship question to the census questionnaire is a direct attack on our representative democracy.”

First, see Myth #1 above. This isn’t the “addition” of a citizenship question; it is the continuation of an occasionally absent citizenship question. Second, let’s define “representative democracy.” Representative democracy is a type of democracy where elected officials represent a group of people. All that “no taxation without representation” stuff.

There is an egregious example of taxation without representation, and it isn’t illegal aliens: it’s the residents of Washington D.C. Have you ever heard of the senators from D.C.? That’s because there aren’t any. Some 700,000 Americans have no elected representatives in Congress. If we’re going to fix the problem, let’s fix it for American citizens before we get all generous with illegal aliens. Which, let’s not ever do since they are not entitled to representative power since they are not entitled to be here.

There is a direct attack on our representative democracy, but it comes from not asking the citizenship question. The Constitution apportions one representative for every 30,000 persons. If California is chock full of illegal aliens who are counted just like everyone else, then California gets a whole lot more congressional representation as a result. That makes the voters in California more powerful than the voters in a state without as much illegal immigration. That’s, what do you call it, not fair.

The Trump administration wants the citizenship question added because it is anti-immigrant.

As discussed above, no one is “adding” anything; it’s a question that has been there in some form or another throughout our history, as recently as 2000. You can believe Donald Trump is anti-immigrant only if you believe our country throughout its history has been anti-immigrant, and that’s just hogwash. You won’t get a single decent American to disagree that we are a nation of immigrants. But Donald Trump—like a lot of us—distinguishes between legal and illegal immigration. We are a nation of immigrants but not a nation of illegal immigrants. The real myth is that there is no difference between the two.

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