Kansas joins effort to stop counting noncitizens in census, but communities fear damage
thebeaconnews.org
Census results are used to allocate federal and state resources. Smaller populations mean less money for municipalities and states.
Takeaways
  1. Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach joined a lawsuit because Kansas is likely to lose congressional representation to states with larger noncitizen populations.
  2. Advocates say the census count needs to be as accurate as possible. Not counting noncitizens would be a mistake, they warn.
  3. Ohio, West Virginia and Louisiana have also joined the lawsuit.
  • @hypna
    7•1 day ago

    This doesn’t seem like it ought to be all-or-nothing. Knowing the number of citizens and the total number of residents is useful for different purposes. Electoral votes: citizens. Disaster response: residents. And so on.

    • @Cort
      16•24 hours ago

      Except that’s not how the Constitution is currently written:

      . . . shall be determined by . . . the whole Number of free Persons . . .

      It doesn’t mention citizens for apportionment.

      • @hypna
        0•23 hours ago

        Then they have a higher hurdle to clear. All I’m saying is it seems reasonable to give a state representation based on the number of citizens.

        I got curious about the size of the issue. The numbers I found for Texas was an estimated 1.6 million illegal immigrants out of a total population of 30.5 million, or roughly 5%. There are 38 reps from Texas, so they’d lose one or two.

        • @Cort
          4•23 hours ago

          And I’m saying it’s NOT reasonable to only count citizens.

          Since you’re curious, in 2022 Texas had 3 million non citizen legal permanent residents (green card holders) that’s about twice as many as the number of people immigrating illegally.

          All the green card holders came here legally and followed all the rules, but you’re wanting to force them to have taxation without representation? That’s fucking absurd and un-american.

          • @hypna
            -2•22 hours ago

            Neither illegal immigrants, nor non-citizen residents get to vote. In what sense are they represented in either case?

            • @Cort
              6•22 hours ago

              Neither do children, and yet they’re still taxed. And non citizens do get to vote in some elections.

              To actually answer your question tho, they vote with their feet. If the representative in their area isn’t doing what they want, they can move which reduces the population count for apportionment. Your proposal removes that little bit of leverage legal immigrants have to affect change.

    • Billiam
      3•1 day ago

      Yeah, Republicans are fucking braindead racists.

      Noncitizens in your locality use resources, same as citizens. Under their bullshit, a town that had 1 citizen and 10,000 immigrants would be horribly mismanaged.

      Which is probably the point, actually.