One of the country’s most polarizing politicians is calling for illegal immigrants to fill out the 2020 census.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told NBC’s Seth Meyers on Thursday that “every single person, no matter your documentation status” should participate in filling out the once-in-a-decade record of persons dwelling in the United States.
“We’re all going to get mailed a prompt to fill out the census in the next two weeks or so,” the New York Democrat said. “Every single person, no matter your documentation status, no matter your housing status, income, etc., is to be counted.”
In 2019, Ocasio-Cortez condemned the idea of a citizenship question on the census, saying, “unspeakable horrors have been executed in the United States in the name of citizenship.”
The census, which will begin on March 12, 2020, will be used to determine how government funds should be used to build a wide range of infrastructures such as schools, hospitals, homes, and supermarkets. A major debate around the census is related to how the numbers are used to alter congressional representation. Ten states are expected to either lose or gain congressional districts based on the results of the 2020 census.
President Trump stoked outrage in 2018 when his administration announced plans to reintroduce a citizenship question to the decennial U.S. census for the first time since 1950. Critics called the proposed citizenship question xenophobic and claimed its addition would suppress a true count of the populace, but proponents argued the measure would protect against voting discrimination. Federal Judge Jesse Furman ruled against the plan, writing that the implementation of a citizenship test would be both “arbitrary and capricious.”
The House voted last year to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt of Congress after they failed to respond to congressional subpoenas regarding the citizenship question. The Justice Department refused to charge the two men; Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that their failure to comply “did not constitute a crime.”
In June of 2019, the Trump administration said it would no longer pursue the citizenship addition after the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 against the effort.
