PublicEye.org - Website of Political Research Associates

PublicEye.org - Website of Political Research Associates: "The Next Economic Imperative: Undocumented Immigrants in the 2010 Census (PDF)
By Afton Branche, Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, New York City, July 2009.

The country has asked whether a resident is native born or foreign born since the first U.S. census in 1790. But the census has never asked whether a resident is here legally or not. As late as October, Republican senators tried to force the census to include that question in 2010, not least because a state’s Congressional seats are determined by census counts. In this report, a liberal think tank outlines the economic costs of undercounting the 12 million undocumented immigrants expected to be in the country during the census. If the national headcount is not accurate, the country will underinvest at a time when greater investment is needed to counter the recession.

The study builds on a PricewaterhouseCoopers estimate that the undercount of undocumented people in the 2000 Census meant a loss of $4 billion in federal funds that should have gone to states and municipalities from 2002 to 2012. Among the services underfunded were healthcare and education as well as infrastructure improvements like federal highways and the Community Development Block Grant Program.

An undercount also distorts commercial decisions since many businesses evaluate potential markets using the census’ demographic, income, and residence information. Service industries in particular overlook the consumer power of undocumented populations, possibly leading to underinvestment that could help regional economies.
The report deftly outlines the concrete economic advantages of counting all undocumented persons, but it could have better refuted corrosive arguments presented by the Center for Immigration Studies and Federation for American Immigration Reform. Still, this report remains a useful resource as the census battle continues."