What's missing in the census

Sometimes you lose even when you win. The 2020 census was a case in point. The administration of former President Donald Trump tried to require respondents to say whether they were citizens of the United States. This rightly led to complaints that the question would drive down response to the census, especially among Hispanics and other minority groups. Legal challenges that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately scuttled the question. That was a win for common sense and democracy, but the mere possibility of the question left a damaging wake. The U.S. Census Bureau reported last week that the nation's Hispanic or Latino population had been undercounted by 4.99 percent, far higher than the 1.54 percent undercount in 2010. That shouldn't be surprising. Many immigrants, whether they were in the country legally or illegally, had an entirely rational fear that answering a question about their citizenship status could have put them at risk of deportation. Although federal law prohibits information gathered from the census from being used against anyone, the Trump administration was stocked with immigration hardliners who, along with their boss, made it their mission to make immigrants' lives miserable. Why wouldn't immigrant communities fear that the information could be used against them? Consider what Lorain County Commissioner Matt Lundy, who chaired the county's Complete Count Committee, told our reporter Carissa Woytach last week. "I think there was some reluctance or some hesitancy by members of the Hispanic/Latino community," Lundy said. "I guess they just didn't really want to engage the federal government because of some things that were being said about them and the way they felt they were being treated." That, of course, was entirely the point, even if then-Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross offered up the false justification that asking about citizenship would somehow help enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts rightly called that out for the pretext it was in his majority opinion blocking the citizenship question. We know the true motive, in part because of information released by the daughter of the late Thomas B. Hofeller, a Republican political operative from North Carolina who had pushed for the question. Including it would have helped "Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites," Hofeller had argued. Census data is used in reapportionment of congressional seats and determining how federal money is distributed. If minorities are underrepresented, they are likely to lose out on representation and some funding for the communities in which they reside. Moreover, the idea that Republicans intended the citizenship question to protect voting rights is absurd. This is the same party that has in large measure embraced Trump's lies about the 2020 election being stolen and subsequent GOP efforts across the country, including in Ohio, to restrict voting in the name of protecting election "integrity." Many of those efforts have been targeted specifically to drive down voter turnout among minorities. Nor were Hispanics and Latinos the only minority undercounted in 2020. African Americans were undercounted by 3.3 percent compared to 2.06 percent in 2010, while American Indians or Alaska Natives living on reservations were undercounted by 5.6 percent compared to 4.8 percent in 2010. Those who identified as some other race were undercounted by 4.34 percent compared to 1.63 percent in 2010. And lest one be tempted to place the blame fully on the pandemic, which no doubt complicated the census, consider that the non-Hispanic white population was overcounted by 1.64 percent compared to 0.83 percent in 2010. Asian Americans were overcounted by 2.62 percent. A decade ago, they were neither over- or undercounted. The census also was hampered by the rushed manner in which the Trump administration concluded it. Although the Census Bureau hasn't released state and local data on over- and undercounts, it wouldn't come as a surprise to learn that the local numbers also were skewed. This despite the efforts by the county's Complete Count Committee, churches, nonprofits and others to drive up local response. That led to a self-response rate of 75.6 percent in the county, which was higher than the 67 percent nationally. Ohio had a self-response rate of 70.7 percent. You have to wonder what we would have learned about our community if more people had responded — and if some of them hadn't been afraid to do so.