bobbyw24
10-14-2009, 06:04 PM
Senators try to exclude illegal immigrants from 2010 Census
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By Haya El Nasser, USA TODAY
A controversial amendment that would require the Census Bureau to ask for the first time whether people are in the USA illegally is headed for a Senate vote Wednesday.
Proposed last week by Republican Sens. David Vitter of Louisiana and Bob Bennett of Utah, the amendment would exclude illegal immigrants from the population count used to allocate congressional seats after the 2010 Census. It also would require the Census to ask people whether they are citizens.
"Illegal aliens should not be included for the purposes of determining representation in Congress, and that's the bottom line here," Vitter says. If enacted, the amendment to an appropriations bill would stop funding of the 2010 Census unless the changes are made.
The amendment comes less than six months before 2010 Census questionnaires are mailed to 135 million households. About 425 million forms have already been printed, according to the bureau. Some are in different languages; others are duplicates that will go to houses that do not respond to the first mailing.
The Census Bureau is launching an outreach campaign to persuade Americans that next year's national head count will be a simple, painless process.
The "Take 10" campaign promotes the idea that the Census form has only 10 questions and should take just 10 minutes to answer. Adding questions would require designing new forms. "It's operationally impossible," says Steve Jost, Census associate communications director. "The forms are printed, folded. We have bilingual forms. ... We're printing 1.5 million forms a day."
By law, the Census is taken April 1. State population counts must be submitted to the president the following Dec. 31 so
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2009-10-13-census_N.htm?csp=34
*
By Haya El Nasser, USA TODAY
A controversial amendment that would require the Census Bureau to ask for the first time whether people are in the USA illegally is headed for a Senate vote Wednesday.
Proposed last week by Republican Sens. David Vitter of Louisiana and Bob Bennett of Utah, the amendment would exclude illegal immigrants from the population count used to allocate congressional seats after the 2010 Census. It also would require the Census to ask people whether they are citizens.
"Illegal aliens should not be included for the purposes of determining representation in Congress, and that's the bottom line here," Vitter says. If enacted, the amendment to an appropriations bill would stop funding of the 2010 Census unless the changes are made.
The amendment comes less than six months before 2010 Census questionnaires are mailed to 135 million households. About 425 million forms have already been printed, according to the bureau. Some are in different languages; others are duplicates that will go to houses that do not respond to the first mailing.
The Census Bureau is launching an outreach campaign to persuade Americans that next year's national head count will be a simple, painless process.
The "Take 10" campaign promotes the idea that the Census form has only 10 questions and should take just 10 minutes to answer. Adding questions would require designing new forms. "It's operationally impossible," says Steve Jost, Census associate communications director. "The forms are printed, folded. We have bilingual forms. ... We're printing 1.5 million forms a day."
By law, the Census is taken April 1. State population counts must be submitted to the president the following Dec. 31 so
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2009-10-13-census_N.htm?csp=34