TELL CONGRESS: Don’t Cut the 2020 Census Short, Extend the Census Reporting Deadline
This year has brought a host of new challenges for the 2020 Census as we continue to deal with a public health crisis on top of President Trump’s repeated attempts to cut the census short and deprive millions of their right to participate in it. In response, organizations and members across the CPD network jumped into action to do everything in their power to encourage their communities to be counted in order to shape our future for the next decade.
From phone banking to text banking, broadcast events on Facebook Live, Instagram Takeovers and car caravans, our affiliates have done everything they can to get out the word about the importance of engaging in the census to their communities. In New York City alone we partnered with Make the Road NY and NYS Senator Zellnor Y. Myrie’s office to make more than 100,000 calls to community members in Brooklyn. On a national level, we partnered with Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM) to host monthly census calls for the immigrant rights movement, and collaborated on an Immigrant Heritage Week of Action in June 2020 to increase census participation digitally. We also want to give a special shout out to our partners Make the Road NV and Action NC on an impressive outreach campaign! They hosted virtual census dinner parties, and car caravans to get out the count.
In July, the Trump administration issued a memorandum in an attempt to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census count. This is especially alarming since using inaccurate census data will affect how many representatives each state will have in Congress for the next ten years, and how much federal funding our communities will receive for roads, schools, housing and social programs. In response to this attack, our partners from Make the Road NY, CASA and others filed a lawsuit to block this directive. It was a huge victory for the immigrant community when a federal panel of three judges in New York ruled that Trump’s order was unlawful. As the other lawsuits await a hearing, we continue to pressure Congress to pass a bipartisan bill that would help ensure an accurate count by extending the deadline.
In the meantime, as we get closer to the October 31st deadline, it is imperative that all of us get counted with the current resources we have at our disposal. Completing an accurate census count now is even more critical than even in order for us to realize a full pandemic recovery, and will have an impact that will affect us for the next ten years.
