Where a citizenship question could cause the census to miss millions of Hispanics

And why that’s a big deal

By Ted Mellnik and Kate Rabinowitz July 4

The Justice Department said Wednesday they would continue to look for a way to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, reversing their decision from just one day prior, after a tweet from President Trump. A fraction of the nation’s population is already asked that question each year in the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.

Hispanics with no citizenship answer on the 2017 American Community Survey



In the latest ACS, in 2017, the citizenship question went unanswered by about 1 in 12 Hispanics, a far higher rate than that of whites. Where these non-responses occurred can tell us where millions of Hispanics would probably be missed if the same question were added to the 2020 Census.

Hispanics from Mexico and Central America, areas targeted by the Trump administration’s immigration policies, were most likely to skip the citizenship question, so their neighborhoods would be most affected by the undercount.

The question is simple: “Is this person a citizen of the United States?”

But those words would lead to a 2020 undercount of 6 million Hispanics, or about 12 percent of the Hispanic population, according to a study published this spring by Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy.

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