You aren’t seeing this in the mainstream media, but a piece in the Wall Street Journal spells out the grim consequences looming with the way the government is planning to handle the outcome of the 2010 census. Here’s the bottom line:
According to the latest American Community Survey, California has 5,622,422 noncitizens in its population of 36,264,467. Based on our round-number projection of a decade-end population in that state of 37,000,000 (including 5,750,000 noncitizens), California would have 57 members in the newly reapportioned U.S. House of Representatives.
However, with noncitizens not included for purposes of reapportionment, California would have 48 House seats (based on an estimated 308 million total population in 2010 with 283 million citizens, or 650,000 citizens per House seat). Using a similar projection, Texas would have 38 House members with noncitizens included. With only citizens counted, it would be entitled to 34 members.
Of course, other states lose out when noncitizens are counted for reapportionment. According to projections of the 2010 Census by Election Data Services, states certain to lose one seat in the 2010 reapportionment are Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania; states likely (though not certain) to lose a seat are Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, and Ohio could lose a second seat. But under a proper census enumeration that excluded illegal residents, some of the states projected to lose a representative—including our own state of Louisiana—would not do so.
Taking a census is not a bad thing; we are a vast sprawl of a country and to know how many people reside here is necessary so that those things for which the federal government is Constitutionally responsible may be effectively accomplished. (Yes, “effectively” is a stretch since the federal government has so overstepped its bounds, but stay with me here.)
That the United States government intends to allow the presence of illegal immigrants, deliberate criminals who by definition are in no way entitled to the privileges of an American citizen, to dictate the representative makeup of Congress boggles the mind. It dangerously erodes the very foundation of the idea of state sovereignty; when a state like California that, by its own choices, coddles high numbers of illegals it forces other states to pay for their resulting problems by ending up with greater voting influence in Congress. Voting influence that determines where the hard-earned tax dollars of the residents of other states are sent.
Simply put, it rewards bad behavior and hurts those states that act responsibly. Even more simply put, if you are not from California (or Texas), THIS DIRECTLY HURTS YOU.
In 1790, the first Census Act provided that the enumeration of that year would count “inhabitants” and “distinguish” various subgroups by age, sex, status as free persons, etc. Inhabitant was a term with a well-defined meaning that encompassed, as the Oxford English Dictionary expressed it, one who “is a bona fide member of a State, subject to all the requisitions of its laws, and entitled to all the privileges which they confer.”
The Constitution, in Article 1, Section 2 states that “The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.” Although simple counting for the original purpose of apportioning State Representatives has morphed into an enormous trivial pursuit, I don’t think it is asking to much of the government to use said trivia appropriately. The U.S. Code, Title 13, Chapter 3, Subchapter V, Section 101 states that:
(a) The Secretary may collect decennially statistics relating—
(1) to the defective, dependent, and delinquent classes; and
(2) to crime, including judicial statistics pertaining thereto.
(b) The statistics authorized by subsection (a) of this section shall include information upon the following questions, namely: age, sex, color, nativity, parentage, literacy by race, color, nativity, and parentage, and such other questions relating to such subjects as the Secretary deems proper.
(c) In addition to the decennial collections authorized by subsections (a) and (b) of this section, the Secretary may compile and publish annually statistics relating to crime and to the defective, dependent, and delinquent classes.
Translated, this means the government has the legal right to count the number of illegal immigrants in the United States. Frankly, they should then use that data to remove them, not to reward criminals and states like California who harbor them in great numbers by giving them a voice in the House of Representatives.