#SaveTheCensus sign | Getty Images De Blasio deputy mayor links undercounting of minorities in census to voter suppression

A deputy to Mayor Bill de Blasio warned that a potential undercounting of black communities in the upcoming 2020 census could lead to voter suppression — one tactic he identified in a growing effort to minimize the electoral power of racial minorities in the United States.

J. Phillip Thompson, deputy mayor for strategic initiatives said during a roundtable Monday for black and African-descent journalists that in a couple of decades, a majority of U.S. residents and citizens will be people of color. He said a federal push to marginalize immigrant communities in the decennial count was part of a larger effort to limit their impact at the voting booth.


"What that means in terms of transfer of power is an existential threat — more than climate change — for conservatives in this country and there are different strategies at play to suppress, to try to delay the impact of that, one of which is voter suppression but another piece of it is undercount," Thompson said during the City Hall event. "And these things are being done deliberately, and intimidation and fear is being stoked up deliberately."

Thompson said black response rates to the census have historically been low. He pointed to fear among black immigrant communities over information being sent to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or other enforcement authorities. He said people who are doubled-up in public housing or other apartments worry about losing housing if their landlord or housing authority gets the information.

And he said the Trump administration and its allies are exploiting those fears to keep counts low both in the census and on the voter rolls.

"The timing of all of this is all part of the same thing and just remember if not for voter suppression, Florida would have a different governor right now," Thompson said. "Georgia would have a different governor right now. The stakes are high and I just think that needs to get across in terms of context. Why is it that ICE is being deployed to go after people and show up? It’s because the stakes are high."

The federal government distributes more than $650 billion a year for more than 200 programs on which New Yorkers rely for services such as public education, public housing, Medicaid, senior centers and infrastructure. And New York State is at risk of losing two congressional seats if it is undercounted.

Last year, the City Council and the city committed $40 million in the city's budget for a census plan, including $19 million going directly to community-based organizations to do outreach. Gov. Andrew Cuomo also recently announced an extra $10 million to assist with the Census in addition to the $60 million already committed.

"The communities that are most vulnerable to losing representation are precisely black and immigrant communities and sometimes they’re one and the same — not only at the federal level of government but also the state Legislature and also the City Council," Thompson said.