One day after federal officials said the U.S. Census Bureau would move forward with printing forms for the 2020 census that will not include a controversial proposed citizenship question, Massachuestts Secretary of the Commonwealth Bill Galvin said he’s worried that the public controversy has already compromised the already-difficult task of accurately counting all the state’s residents.
Galvin has spoken in opposition to an added citizenship question , but said he has also been concerned about the delay in moving ahead with the 2020 census the controversy has caused.
“I'm glad that it happened, because this census is now literally months away and so we need to prepare for it, and it's going to be challenging,” Galvin said on Wednesday morning, while manning an annual display of a Massachusetts original copy of the Declaration of Independence at the Massachusetts Archives and Commonwealth Museum.
Even without a citizenship question, Galvin said he’s worried that the public controversy will disincentivize immigrants, whatever their legal status, from participating in the census.
“There is no question that the atmosphere … has been hostile,” Galvin said. “I’ve run the census effort here twice before, and counting immigrants is always challenging. But I think when you have the atmosphere we've experienced over the last couple years, it's even more so.”
Read more: 5 Ways The US Census Dispute Could Affect Massachusetts
Meanwhile, even as Galvin was speaking, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to declare that news reports that the administration is conceding the citizenship question are “fake.” Trump indicated that his administration still intends to pursue adding the question, apparently despite a ruling last week by the U.S. Supreme Court that adding the question would violate federal law.
The News Reports about the Department of Commerce dropping its quest to put the Citizenship Question on the Census is incorrect or, to state it differently, FAKE! We are absolutely moving forward, as we must, because of the importance of the answer to this question.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 3, 2019
In a statement emailed later in the day, Galvin indicated he expects the government to move forward with stated plans to begin printing census forms without a citizenship question.
Beth Huang, of the nonprofit Massachusetts Voter Table, a voting rights group which opposed a citizenship question, said her group is not putting much stock in the president’s tweet.
“None of us are too surprised that he tweeted this morning,” said Huang.
“But if two of the federal departments have confirmed that these forms are being printed, we will believe that,” Huang said.
