Dakota Beacon

By this time next year the 2020 census will be underway. In December 2017 the Justice Department asked the Commerce Department to include the following question on the 2020 census. “Is this person a citizen of the United States?” DOJ states this would help verify compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

At this point liberals, progressives, and Democrat leaders blew up. The mainstream media concurred.

The census has not included a citizenship question since 1950. Prior to that, from 1820 until 1950, almost every census asked some question regarding citizenship status. This sets a precedent.

On March 26, 2018, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross stated, “After a thorough review of the legal, program, and policy considerations, as well as numerous discussions with the Census Bureau leadership and interested stakeholders, I have determined that reinstatement of a citizenship question on the 2020 decennial census is necessary to provide complete and accurate data in response to the DOJ request.”

In November 2018, after a three-week trial, US District Judge Jesse Furman, Southern District of New York, ruled in January 2019 that while a question on citizenship would be constitutional, Wilber Ross did not follow proper procedure. The proper procedure would be to give congress three years notice prior to the change!

In April 2019 US District Judge George Hazel, District of Maryland, also ruled against the census citizenship question.

Sidestepping the usual appellate court route the US Supreme Court agreed to hear the census citizenship case immediately. On April 23, 2019, the court heard oral arguments on the citizenship question. The Census Bureau needs a ruling by June 2019 in order to print the census forms on schedule.

According to a 2014 Pew Research Center study a majority of the US undocumented population purportedly lives in 20 metropolitan areas. There are about 1 million illegals in the New York and Los Angeles areas, 575,000 in Houston area, and 475,000 in the Dallas area. If the Los Angeles Times is correct, today 1.3 million California illegal residents may choose not to participate in the 2020 census. California is willing to spend $150 million on “outreach” to convince illegals otherwise.

All of this is driving the left bonkers. Reason? Liberals, progressives, socialists, Democrats, and other leftists often hide their true intentions when making promises or selling programs. The left has the unique ability to lie to themselves and believe it. If leftists were honest, most Americans would reject their shenanigans.

For example, if Obama sold his Obamacare proposal honestly he would have told Americans that medical insurance premiums would skyrocket, they would not be able to keep their medical plan, and would probably lose their doctor. Would he have been elected? Fat chance. He never did tell Americans Obamacare would nationalize one-sixth of the US economy. The left has succeeded in deceiving Americans by convincing them that they are not radical extremists.

Immigration as a hot topic has stripped the façade from radical Democrats. They are no longer camouflaged. The real reason they do not object to an unlimited flow of illegals into the US is not for compassionate reasons. For those who reject the argument that Democrats are motivated by power politics and who accept the argument that Democrats are motivated by compassion for the poor and downtrodden, then how do they explain the liberal opposition to finding out who these people are through the census question?

Democrats are concerned. Census data helps guide the distribution of $675 billion a year in federal funding. If illegal immigrants answer the citizenship question truthfully, then the real number illegals living in the US will be known. It is certain to be 20 million or more which is a lot higher that the 12 million guesstimate. That would confirm that the US has a border security problem that needs to be remedied by Congress immediately. If illegals don’t answer the question then the headcount falls, fewer people will be counted in Democrat strongholds thereby reducing dollars and representative seats in Congress, ergo, loss of power.

Cut to the chase. Democrats want illegals counted in order to get more taxpayer dollars for their districts and more seats in the US House of Representatives and in statehouses across the nation. They know that once Democrats are in power they can vote themselves whatever money they want.

Based on oral arguments, it appears that five right-of-center Supreme Court Justices support adding the citizenship question to the census. We will know in June.

It all boils down to power and money. Democrats depend on illegal immigrants for both. They also depend on illegals for votes. But, that is a whole different story.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).