Vitter's Census Citizenship Question Making More News

[Ayatollahgondola]

Politic's Daily article:

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/10...immigration-r/

Simon Rosenberg, the founder of the New Democrat Network, opposes the measure. "We essentially went to war over this question as a country," Rosenberg said. "The Civil War was fought over how we treat slaves and whether they're whole people or not. The country made a resolution around these questions, which is that everyone would be counted in the reapportionment. It is not something Congress can override through law. Congress does not have the ability to change this. They'd have to change the Constitution."

[LAPhil]

This issue may not be as simple as it sounds. On one hand, most of us (if not all of us) would agree that illegals should not be counted in the census if it meant giving them equal representation in the system. However there are at least two problems with this. The first is that like it or not, they are here and they do share in the resources provided by the infrastructure and there's no way to separate them from the legal residents. Allocation of government funding and resources are often based on population statistics, e.g., education and medical services, and infrastructure, e.g., electricity, water, and gas. For example, if the government was to cut California's funding because of the large number of illegal aliens we would all suffer because there would be less for everyone.

The other problem is identifying the illegals to begin with. How does the Census Bureau know who is here legally and who isn't? Are they going to come to everyone's residence and check the green cards of all the Hispanic respondents? Obviously they can't do this because it would be considered racially profiling and would not be tolerated. The only way around this would be for them to ask for proof of residence from all respondents, and that would be completely impractical.

I would therefore have to say that there is really no practical way to eliminate the counting of illegals in the census at this time, as much as I wish there were. The only solution would have to be deportation, either voluntarily or otherwise.

[Ayatollahgondola]

All the questions asked are based upon the truth being the hopeful answers. No proof of anything is demanded, so asking another question hardly seems a big imposition. If their fears are credible, than so should all of us be fearful of giving any answer, and along with that, any question is too big a burden. Especially since they get rather personal with these questionaires, many of which have little to do with representational issues.
whether there is some sort of necessity or entitlement to services or not still doesn't negate the underlying fact that they will benefit from the representational standpoint

[LAPhil]

Originally Posted by Ayatollahgondola

All the questions asked are based upon the truth being the hopeful answers. No proof of anything is demanded, so asking another question hardly seems a big imposition. If their fears are credible, than so should all of us be fearful of giving any answer, and along with that, any question is too big a burden. Especially since they get rather personal with these questionaires, many of which have little to do with representational issues.
whether there is some sort of necessity or entitlement to services or not still doesn't negate the underlying fact that they will benefit from the representational standpoint

You don't think the illegals are going to admit to being here illegally, do you? I go back to my original question, how would we know? And as for benefitting from the representational standpoint, I agree that in an ideal world this wouldn't happen, but what's your solution to other issues entailed in not counting them?

[Ayatollahgondola]

Originally Posted by LAPhil

You don't think the illegals are going to admit to being here illegally, do you? I go back to my original question, how would we know? And as for benefitting from the representational standpoint, I agree that in an ideal world this wouldn't happen, but what's your solution to other issues entailed in not counting them?

I don't actually know how many would or wouldn't tell the truth. On that same point, I'm not even sure how many citizens even tell the truth about much or all the questions. We don't tailor the questions to the general population based upon their willingness to answer, so to do so for one soecific demographic seems a bit unfair. I don't see any issues in not counting them. We should not plan our government around the illegals remaining here, but rather how and when they should leave. To do any different concedes some sort of plan to allow them to stay

[LAPhil]

Originally Posted by Ayatollahgondola

I don't actually know how many would or wouldn't tell the truth. On that same point, I'm not even sure how many citizens even tell the truth about much or all the questions. We don't tailor the questions to the general population based upon their willingness to answer, so to do so for one soecific demographic seems a bit unfair. I don't see any issues in not counting them. We should not plan our government around the illegals remaining here, but rather how and when they should leave. To do any different concedes some sort of plan to allow them to stay

You're still not addressing the whole issue. The point is basically that you don't cut off your nose to spite your face. It would be like closing a school or a hospital because there might be illegals taking advantage of the services. If the total amount of state funding is disproportionately small, everyone suffers, not just the illegals. If memory serves me correctly this issue came up in Congress a couple of years ago and even Tom Tancredo and various other anti-illegal immigration congressmen thought this was a bad idea and voted against a bill which would have excluded illegal aliens from the census. Another ironic element in this is that some pro-illegal immigration groups have actually threatened to boycott the census! This issue is clearly not black and white.