Posted by
Always To The Right on Thursday, October 15, 2009 1:02:35 PM
Critics will say that the Census is not an enforcement agency for
immigration, and they’d be correct. However, no one says that the
Census Bureau has to act as an enforcement agency, either.
They do not need to call the cops if they discover that residents have
no legal status to remain in the country. They do need, however, to document it,
for a couple of reasons. The lesser reason is that it will give us
some real data on which to base immigration enforcement and/or reform
legislation in the near future — Barack Obama says it’s one of his key
priorities — instead of relying on guesswork from contradictory
resources on the subject.
More importantly, though, is the core purpose of the Census itself.
The Constitution requires the Census to properly calculate the legal
population in order to apportion representation in the House for the
states. Not only does counting illegal immigrants have no legitimacy
for that purpose, it penalizes those states who act to enforce American
law and reward those that act as “sanctuaries” in defiance of the law
and national security.
Unless we’re printing on parchment, I doubt that the cost to stop and
reprint would amount to more than $100 million. In fact, as Senator
Bennett points out, all that really needs to happen is to print an
additional sheet for the new question and include in in the packets,
which would result in much lower extra costs.