Writing yesterday for the National Review’s blog, The Corner, Heritage’s Hans von Spakovsky wrote on the 2010 Census and coming immigration battles:
The Boston Globe reports that advocates for illegal aliens are urging their followers to boycott the 2010 census. They want illegal aliens to “protest the government’s inaction on immigration legislation.”
Translated from liberal Boston Globe-speak, they mean legislation that would provide amnesty for the 15 million who are here illegally and would end the federal government’s half-hearted efforts to enforce our immigration laws.
I sure hope the boycotters are successful. This would result in two positive outcomes. First, states like California that have more congressional representatives than they should would lose those seats. Apportionment is based on the entire population counted by the census, not just citizens and lawful, permanent residents. It is fundamentally unfair that states get more votes in the House of Representatives based on the number of illegal aliens they harbor, rather than the number of U.S. citizens and legal residents who pay the full measure of taxes and have the proper allegiance to our system of government. California alone has six more congressional seats than it deserves because of its huge population of illegal aliens. States like Ohio and Pennsylvania are short seats because of this type of apportionment.
Second, states with large populations of illegal immigrants would lose the federal funds that are paid out — once again — based on the total population of those states. This provides an incentive for states to do nothing about their illegal-immigrant populations. If they had to absorb the full costs of their illegal aliens, they might change their minds on this issue, and “sanctuary” cities might disappear. As polls clearly indicate, many Americans believe it is fundamentally wrong for illegal aliens to receive government benefits. According to Rasmussen, 83 percent of Americans say proof of citizenship should be required before anyone can receive government subsidies; that is one of the reasons Obamacare is failing. Today’s large numbers of illegal aliens would decrease if local and state governments used their resources to help locate and remove these individuals, and if the federal government did what it is supposed to do — deport them when they are found, instead of providing financial incentives for them to stay.
