HWH Comment: Personally, I think it’s ludicrous to take a census and not be able to determine how many people living in the USA are not citizens or how many are on work visas or any other type of visa.
It’s shocking that the democrats talk about wanting to preserve the integrity of the census by essentially allowing people to lie, by not putting the citizen question on the census form. People who are not in the USA legally won’t participate whether the question is asked or not. However, if a household claims only two people on the census, then when applying for benefits, that number jumps to six, then that’s a red flag that needs to be addressed.
Why is it that nobody can lie to any government agency under threats of penalty, except those living here illegally? They are the only ones allowed to remain silent about their status.
Transparency is what this country needs, not hiding those living here illegally by not asking the appropriate and necessary questions about their citizenship status. It’s time the USA got a grip on the millions of people living here illegally, while collecting benefits under the guise of being legal.
It doesn’t matter what the census was originally designed to do. Guess what? The world changed, and now the census-taking has to change with it. The issue now is making sure every individual living in the USA is accounted for.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has asserted executive privilege over documents that were subpoenaed by Congress related to his administration’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, the Justice Department said Wednesday.
The claim comes as the House Oversight and Reform Committee considers whether to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt for failing to turn over the subpoenaed documents. A contempt vote by the committee would be an escalation of Democratic efforts to use their House majority to aggressively investigate the inner workings of the Trump administration.
In a letter to the committee’s chairman, Rep. Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the Justice Department asserted that the administration has “engaged in good-faith efforts” to satisfy the committee’s oversight needs and that the planned contempt vote was premature.
Democrats fear the question will reduce census participation in immigrant-heavy communities. They say they want specific documents to determine why Ross added the citizenship question to the 2020 census and contend the administration has declined to provide them despite repeated requests.
The administration has turned over more than 17,000 of pages of documents and Ross testified for nearly seven hours. The Justice Department said two senior officials been interviewed by committee staff and that officials were working to produce tens of thousands of additional pages of relevant documents.
Cummings disputed the Justice Department’s account and said most of the documents turned over to the committee had already been made public.
“We must protect the integrity of the census and we must stand up for Congress’ authority under the Constitution to conduct meaningful oversight,” Cummings said.
The administration’s refusal to turn over requested documents “does not appear to be an effort to engage in good-faith negotiations or accommodations,” he said. “Instead, it appears to be another example of the administration’s blanket defiance of Congress’ constitutionally mandated responsibilities.”
Trump has pledged to “fight all the subpoenas” issued by Congress and says he won’t work on legislative priorities, such as infrastructure, until Congress halts investigations of his administration.
Cummings postponed a planned vote Wednesday morning to allow lawmakers time to read the Justice Department letters.
Ross told the committee the decision in March 2018 to add the question was based on a Justice Department request to help it enforce the Voting Rights Act.
Source: White House asserts executive privilege in census fight
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