With the 2010 census looming, local governments are targeting illegal immigrants to land federal funding tied to the population count.
Dispatching civic groups to speak with day laborers and delivering pleas from church pulpits, officials hope to ease worries about personal information being used for immigration raids.
Failing to count illegal immigrants, local officials say, will reduce federal funding around $1,000 a year for each ignored person. And counties are looking for ways to offset costs that arise from providing health care and school services to thousands of residents who don’t contribute taxes.
“The bottom line is we’re counting heads,” Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Sharon Bulova said. “We’ve done it for hundreds of years in this country — people who are citizens and noncitizens.”
The census details everyone living in an area, including undocumented residents. It is illegal for the U.S. Census Bureau to share the information with other agencies.
Local governments are turning to church leaders and nonprofit groups to make the case to low-income residents, non-English speakers and illegal immigrants, considered the most likely to avoid the 10-question survey.
Bulova delivered a census endorsement to a Korean church congregation Sunday and plans to visit a Fairfax County mosque in the upcoming weeks.
In addition to a “census faith event,” Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett plans a trio of “census festivals,” partially to appeal to the tens of thousands of Hispanics thought to be excluded from the last census in 2000.
Montgomery County officials have identified 42 areas ripe with residents least likely for census inclusion. In 2008, the Census Bureau estimated more than 14 percent of county residents were Hispanic.
Though county officials call the outreach economic survival — more than $400 billion in federal funding is tied to the census — anti-illegal immigration groups say it is coddling residents already draining the region of money.
“It’s a vicious cycle of lawlessness,” said Brad Botwin, founder of Help Save Maryland. “Ike Leggett is waist deep in this. He’s desperate for money. He’s made the bed. Now we have to lie in it.”
The census inroads made to immigrant communities have been curbed somewhat by a national movement for illegals to avoid the survey until laws are reformed to ease the path to citizenship. And they argue the count is used to justify crackdowns.
Census advocates say the boycott would divert federal money for schools, roads and senior citizens to other regions.
“That’s the wrong thing — that’s the wrong message to send out,” said Tony Reyes, chairman of the Prince William County Complete Count Census Committee. “All that’s going to do is be a detriment.”
For each person not counted, Prince William will lose $1,300 in federal funding each year, committee members said.
Immigration enforcement officials vowed to stay away from the data.
“We are focused on smart, effective immigration enforcement that focuses first on those dangerous criminal aliens who present the greatest risk to the security of our communities, not sweeps or raids to target undocumented immigrants indiscriminately,” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Spokesman Brandon Montgomery wrote in an e-mail.
Local census participation by legal residents generally eclipsed the 72 percent national average for the 2000 survey.
David Sherfinski contributed to this report.
