citizenship

The 22 million non-citizens in this country (including many here illegally) are having a huge impact on election of representatives to the U.S. Congress.  This is because apportionment of House seats to each state and the drawing of House district lines are based on total population, not on citizenship.

A new report by the Center for Immigration Studies concludes:

“The profound impact of non-citizens can be seen in the 12 districts with the lowest share of citizens, which have roughly the same population of voting-age U.S. citizens as the nine districts with the highest citizen shares. This means Americans in the high-citizen districts have only nine representatives in Congress while those in the lowest-citizenship districts have 12, even though the combined populations of citizens are roughly equal.”

The rule about apportionment is based on the Constitution, section 2 of the 4^th Amendment.  There has been much debate about its interpretation, and whether it’s rightfully applied.  The CIS study makes it obvious that the rule gives states with large numbers of non-citizens an advantage over other states in Congressional matters, which is unjust to citizens and harmful to the sovereignty of the nation.

Table 1 from an earlier CIS study shows, for each state, the apportionment of House seats after the 2020 Census, assuming different populations were not present.  Under each of the assumptions, the table shows that Oregon will have 6 Representatives, a gain of 1 seat over the current number. 

The source of Oregon’s general population increase is a mixture of migration of citizens from other states (32%)  and immigrants (30%), as reported here.  The large migration from other states is likely often related to excessive immigration and overcrowding in the other states.

“California is by far the more recent state of residence for those who move to Oregon, followed by Washington, Illinois, New York, and Texas. These are all states that have seen significant increases in their population, driven in large-part by immigration. Of those who moved to Oregon as an adult from another state, 44% said they did so ‘seeking a better quality of life.’”-- https://www.numbersusa.com/blog/numbersusa-study-population-growth-and-sprawl-oregon

As a FAIR blog comments: “Without a doubt this [Congressional apportionment] is one of the key reasons why the Democrats have been pushing – with the support or acquiescence of cheap labor corporatist Republicans – open borders and mass immigration. After all, during the 2018 midterm elections, almost 90 percent of House districts with a foreign-born population above the national average were won by Democrats. …

“… A persuasive case can be made that the Department of Commerce – which is responsible for conducting the census – can indeed exclude illegal aliens from the census population count (and that the Constitution did not mean for them to be included in the first place). Unfortunately, the DOC has so far refused to do so, for which it was sued by the state of Alabama and Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL). Alabama certainly had a good reason to sue, for counting illegal aliens would deprive it of a congressional seat and an Electoral College vote. The bottom line is that states with small foreign-born/non-citizen populations, and in particular those with less illegal alien inhabitants, should not be punished by losing representation.”     Read more about Congressional voting is skewed against citizens; fix needed

Should illegal aliens have a major influence on who gets elected to Congress?  Most citizens would probably say No.

But illegal alien advocates and open-borders enthusiasts say Yes.

Population figures reported in the decennial Censuses determine apportionment of seats in Congress.  Too, each state’s electoral vote in presidential elections is tied to the number of seats it has in the House of Representatives.  So accurate figures on the number of citizens are very important.

Pres. Trump’s Secretary of Commerce, the agency which directs the Census Bureau, proposes to reinstate a question in the 2020 Census asking whether respondents are U.S. citizens.   Prior decennial census surveys of the U.S. consistently asked citizenship questions up until 1950.  

The 2020 Census would ask: “Is this person a citizen of the United States?”

Oregon’s Attorney General Rosenbaum joined a lawsuit by several states to block inclusion of the question. The lawsuit was announced soon after California had also sued to block inclusion of the question, and needless to say, Rosenbaum did not ask Oregon citizens what they think.

Kansas’ Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a lawyer with expertise in immigration matters, sheds light on the subject in an interesting Breitbart article posted recently.  Two excerpts:

“Counting illegal aliens allows a state with millions of illegal aliens to unfairly inflate the number of congressional seats and electoral votes it has. Indeed, if the leadership of the state has little regard for the rule of law – as is the case in California – it creates a perverse incentive for the lawless state to invite more illegal aliens to come in. …

“ … California’s arguments are weak, and the lawsuit is a loser. The federal government will prevail, if not in the district court, then on appeal. But the ferocity of the backlash from the Left demonstrates just how important the citizenship question is. America’s willful ignorance concerning the number of citizens and the number of aliens in the country must end.” Read more about Battle over a Census question is more important than you might think