As Eve notes today, the 2010 census has ignited a gay-rights controversy. It’s doing the same on the immigration front. On one side are immigrant advocates who are fighting to ensure that every individual, whether in the country legally or not, is counted next year. On the other side are folks, mostly conservatives, who argue that undocumented immigrants shouldn’t be included in tallies used to reapportion congressional seats to states.
The opening salvo in the battle: a recently proposed amendment sponsored by GOP Sens. David Vitter and Robert Bennett. The measure would add a question to the census survey asking if the respondent is a U.S. citizen or not. Its aim is to exclude noncitizens from state population counts that are used to divvy up not just congressional seats, but federal aid and much more.
Immigrant advocates have been bracing for this clash for months. As Simon Rosenberg of the left-leaning New Democrat Network recently argued in a blog posting, “The Republican assault on the census and reapportionment will not end next week even if the Bennett-Vitter Amendment is voted down,” which it likely will be. “This is going to be a titanic battle.”
Rosenberg and others decry the proposed amendment as divisive. They say it seeks to pit traditionally red states that receive fewer immigrants (like Indiana and Montana) against blue states that are magnets for them (like California and New York). Indeed, an analysis cited in a New York Times article today showed that if noncitizens were stripped out of the population totals, California would lose five congressional seats and New York and Illinois one each. Among the beneficiaries (surprise, surprise): Louisiana, Vitter’s home state, which would be spared the loss of one seat. Get ready for more skirmishes ahead.
