US lawmakers consider adding citizenship question to census amid simmering immigration debate

WASHINGTON — U.S. lawmakers, egged on by Republicans, are again debating whether to ask a citizenship status question to the U.S. Census Bureau’s decennial workforce.

A vote in the US House could take place as soon as Wednesday.

The proposal under discussion, the Equal Representation Act, also calls for apportioning seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. presidential elections based solely on the population of U.S. citizens in a state. Immigrants, regardless of their migration status, now play a role in the distribution, but would not be affected by the change.

Whether it will pass — former President Donald Trump unsuccessfully pushed for such a change during his time in office — remains a big question mark. Even if the measure passes in the Republican Party-controlled U.S. House of Representatives, Democrats, who are likely to oppose the measure, control the U.S. Senate.

In any case, the discussion is yet another indication of how hot the immigration topic is in Utah and beyond, and of the opposing views generated by the issue and the immigrants themselves, especially undocumented immigrants.

Opening discussion Monday at a House Rules Committee meeting on the measure, HR7109, Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, charged that 9.2 million undocumented immigrants have entered the United States during the term so far from President Joe Biden, a Democrat. HR7109 is co-sponsored by Representatives John Curtis and Burgess Owens, Utah Republicans, and many others.

“They can’t vote, but as things stand now, their presence alone could have an outsized effect and unfairly divert federal representation away from American citizens,” said Burgess, the commission’s chairman. He continued: “The House must take action to ensure that the principle of ‘one person, one vote’ continues.”

The measure faced opposition from Democrats, who cited, among other things, the provision of the 14th Amendment that requires the apportionment of seats in the U.S. House to be based on “the whole number of persons” in each state, without regard take into account the migration status. Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Massachusetts and a member of the Rules Committee, called the GOP proposal an attempt “to manipulate the census and ignore the constitutional requirement that we count everyone, not just some people.”

A minority report from Democrats on the measure further noted the potential impact of distributing approximately $2.8 trillion per year in federal funds based on Census Bureau population figures. “An inaccurate census would skew the fair distribution of federal resources for the next decade and deprive cities and towns of necessary resources for everything from roads to hospitals to veteran care,” it said.

Following Monday’s Rules Committee meeting, the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday approved the rules for formal discussion of HR7109. The official debate in the House of Representatives and a vote on the bill could take place as early as Wednesday.

‘Extremely variable figures’

Regardless of the fate of HR7109, discussion of the measure underscores the sharp debate over the exact number of undocumented immigrants in the United States and their value to the country. Apprehensions and encounters involving U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers and immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border have increased dramatically in recent months, fueling debate.

Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Arizona, said at Monday’s hearing that “media types” brought the number of undocumented immigrants in the country to about 11 million in the early 1920s. “The numbers I hear now are consistently between 20 and 40 million who are in the country illegally,” he continued, without citing a specific source.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said he has seen “wildly varying numbers,” while Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, said the numbers he saw “kicking around” range from 10 million to 12 million.

Figures from organizations that focus on immigration do not provide much further clarity, as current estimates of undocumented immigrants are difficult to obtain.

The Center for Migration Studies, in a report released in January, estimated the number of undocumented immigrants as of 2022 at just under 11 million, extrapolating from estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey.

“The report shows that the undocumented population grew from 10.3 million in 2021 to 10.9 million in 2022, an increase of 650,000. The increase ends more than a decade of gradual decline,” the report said.

The Pew Research Center said in an article last November that the number reached 10.5 million in 2021, up from a peak of 12.2 million in 2007.

Although Burgess claimed, without citing a specific source, that 9.2 million undocumented immigrants entered the United States during Biden’s term, the Center for Immigration Studies offers a lower figure. The organization estimates that the foreign-born population in the United States increased by 6.4 million under Biden, with undocumented immigrants representing about 3.7 million of the total.

As for Utah, the Center for Migration Studies estimates that there would be 100,000 undocumented immigrants living in the state by 2022.

The Migration Policy Institute estimates the figure for Utah as of 2019 at 89,000, with about 53,000 of those from Mexico.

The Pew Research Center estimated the figure as of 2021 at 95,000 in Utah, down from 110,000 in 2010 but up from 50,000 in 1998.

According to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released last month, there were an estimated 46.2 million foreign-born people living in the United States in 2022; approximately 53% of them were naturalized U.S. citizens.

More about HR7109

Under HR7109, the proposed census question under consideration would ask whether the residents of each household are citizens.

“Answering the question of whether or not an individual respondent or household member is a citizen only reveals that data point. It does not reveal whether an individual respondent or household member is unlawfully present in the United States,” reads a Republican report on the proposal.

Still, Democrats and other critics have said the question, even though it doesn’t address legal status, could deter some potential respondents from filling out the census form, which will then be collected in 2030.

Supporters of HR7109 argue that counting immigrants in apportioning U.S. House seats creates an imbalance in representation between states that do and do not have large numbers of such residents. “States with a higher share of noncitizens living in that state are thus advantaged over states with a lower concentration of noncitizens,” the Republican report on the bill reads.

Democratic critics argue that every apportionment since 1790 has included all residents, not just those with the right to vote. Additionally, the Democratic response to the bill, authored by Raskin, noted that the immigrant population has a higher labor force participation rate than the U.S.-born population.

“These people pay taxes and contribute to the economic well-being of the nation. It is unacceptable that these individuals should not be represented,” Raskin said in response.