Under the best of circumstances, the toughest challenge they face each time is gaining the trust of marginalized and vulnerable segments of our population, in order to assure their full participation - which is absolutely necessary for the Census Bureau to fulfill its responsibility. The Census Bureau works hard to assure people that none of the information they provide is shared with other government agencies, and will never be used against them.
Imagine the headwinds created when the most prominent face of our government is a malign entity, who constantly expresses hatred, prejudice, and malice for exactly these vulnerable segments of society, and is loudly, persistently calling for changes to the form that will identify these people.
Presumably, the question about citizenship will not be on the forms that go out next year. But the damage is done. The cruel treatment being doled out to asylum-seekers, and The Current Occupant’s insistence that non-citizens be identified and rounded up, reinforce the latent fears of the vulnerable, and an undercount is almost a certainty.
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