To SCOTUS And The ACLU, Regarding The 2020 Census Citizenship Question

[ancianita]

Last edited Tue Apr 23, 2019, 06:41 AM - Edit history (1)

The first Census began in 1790.

Immigration "law" began in 1882.

That means that for almost 100 years, people who were just HERE were counted, whether they were made citizens in 1790 or not.

The first Census and every Census after that counted everyone.
Everybody in. Nobody out.

One more thing about "citizens vs. everybody else," or the "legal" vs. "illegal" immigrants conversation:

1. The U.S. Constitution was written and ratified by undocumented aliens. Founders. Undocumented. Alien.

Long before the Founders got here, from 1507 to 1790, immigrants came as part of *corporate* projects by Europe to rid itself of "waste" people. Jamestown. Plymouth.

Waste people. Understand? As in "Not sending their best."

2. For 283 years, America was literally a sanctuary for debtors, criminals, poor people and theocratic groups. Early Americans "excepted" themselves as "illegals" and made themselves "American."

America, for those 283 years, promoted itself, built its culture, told and wrote some "founding stories" about itself around this exceptionalism.

Yes, for 283 years, undocumented immigrants excepted themselves as a founding people.

3. America's first EXCEPTIONALISM was that AMERICA ACCEPTED EVERYBODY. Unlike most other countries.

The world knew it.
That's why France gave us the Statue of Liberty.

That's why we always recognized that we can't and don't expect other, older countries to run themselves the way we do. They just didn't found themselves and their country that way.

President Reagan knew it, too. Know why Saint Ronnie gave total amnesty to 3 million undocumented immigrants in 1986?

Because Reagan knew -- unlike many non-readers, Twitter of Facebook ranters -- that "Legal" is a construct.

Our "Legal" immigration system is a cockblock setup by illegal immigrants who got here first. That cockblock CONSTRUCT is based on money, racism, xenophobia and fear.

We absolutely do not have to give up on being that country with that First Exceptionalism.
It's what makes our America America.

And "great again," if it ever was.

4. By our "Exceptionalism," this country got built and grew.

During all arguments for the pro-citizenship census question, SCOTUS, remember this:

Unless your ancestors were here before 1492, your ancestors were immigrants, documented or not, immigration laws or not...

It may be your "legal" business to have the Census distinguish citizens. But you would be wrong.

Why? Because American law was FOUNDED by undocumented Founders on that second American Exceptionalism -- the freedom to BE HERE.

So the Census counts whoever is HERE.

Period.

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[Igel]

1. Here are some other tidbits.

From 1850 to 1940 it asked about place of each person's birth. City, state, country.

In 1870, by asking about place of birth and if a citizen, it entailed "was naturalized." You could say "from Frankfurt, Germany" and "citizen" and that pretty much meant "naturalized"; exceptions were vanishingly rare. It was legal.

1900 to 1930 asked about year of immigration to the US. It also asked explicitly for naturalization status--alien, "first papers", or naturalized. It was legal.

The citizenship question continued on all census forms until 1950. The citizenship question vanished from the 1960 questionnaire.

In 1970 there were two forms, long and short. The long form included a citizenship question for each person. The short form, sent to about 5/6 of people, did not. Still, by asking a random sample, it gave information about communities.

The long form continued to ask the question until it was discontinued. In 2010 there was no long form. The short form didn't ask it.

In 2005 an intermediate, an annual American Community Survey started to be sent out (it actually started earlier, but reached full extent in 2005). It asked the citizenship question each year. The ACS is a way of basically using statistics to produce a census-like snapshot year by year instead of each decade.

So for 5 censuses years the census gave no indication as to immigration status, and then included just a question that boiled down to "yes, immigrant" or "no, not immigrant" for 2 censuses. By 1870 it asked about immigration status--naturalized or citizen (with non-citizen being derivable from that information). This continued in some form for 9 census years. For 1960, no such question. But in 1970 it appeared again and continued on 1/6 of census forms for 4 censuses, then vanished in 2010--but by then it was being asked of a statistically valid sample each year.

In other words, since 1850 that information has been requested, in some form, on each census except in 1960 and 2010--and by 2010 the information was derivable statistically for communities, but not for each household. So 7 years not asked, 15 years it was asked. (And in one of those 7 it was largely redundant.)

That's why the lawsuits aren't "it's illegal to ask" but "the process used to decide to include the question didn't follow the requirements."

[ancianita]

2. Crap! I sure got all that citizenship question stuff all wrong, didn't I! Sorry. My thinking

that this time around was the first time, shows I didn't do my homework very well. My impulse was to believe what I wanted to be true.

Thank you very much for the helpful history lesson.

I'm saddened that our government, after 1790, sorted people. I guess I have never understood what was ever to be gained by racial/ethnic surveys or immigration/citizen counts.

Now that my outlook on census history is so ridiculously unsupportable, I'll try harder from now on about the factual end of things.

I suppose I'll delete the whole post.

[Amishman]

3. Don't feel bad, there is a lot of bad info circulating on this topic

I think the focus in criticising this should be their motives and not the question itself. The question probably is legal when considered by itself. It's the intent that might make it discrimination

[ancianita]

4. True. Thanks for understanding the spirit of the OP.