Miami.
It came on January 1, and the U.S. Census Bureau failed to meet the deadline for delivering census data before Dec. 31, and with each passing day it jeopardizes President Donald Trump’s plans to to exclude undocumented immigrants from the national count.
This same week, the Census Bureau acknowledged that although his technicians have “worked hard” to process the data collected in the census they were not going to be able to deliver the figures to the president before the “legal deadline“.
And finally this warning was fulfilled and the body that depends on the Department of Commerce failed for the first time since it was set in 1976 to December 31 as the deadline, and all because of the effects on its work of the coronavirus pandemic and last-minute changes by the Trump administration.
“We continue to process the collected data and plan to deliver a complete and accurate state population count for distribution in early 2021, as close as possible to the legal deadline,” the Census Bureau in a statement.
But the days go by and Trump’s presidency concludes Jan. 20 and dilutes his options to flesh out a plan that has been embroiled in a legal dispute that reached even the U.S. Supreme Court, which in December he dismissed a lawsuit against Trump’s order to exclude undocumented persons from the census on the grounds that it was too early to assess the issue.
The census is conducted in United States every 10 years by constitutional mandate, and the purpose of explaining to all persons present in the country is the allocation of representation of the states in Congress and the Electoral College for the next decade, and of billions of dollars for infrastructure programs, hospitals, schools and social assistance.
The president wants the undocumented immigrants not to be taken into account in the next round of political and financial allocations, even if the ten-year census counts.
Trump instructed Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in July to present him with two results from this year’s census, one of which excluding undocumented immigrants. The president believes some states are getting more representation than they deserve because of the number of undocumented people living there.
The Constitution stipulates that the census must count all people living in the country, however Trump, In a memorandum issued in July and for the first time in the history of the republic, authority was attributed to exclude undocumented immigrants when the time comes to distribute representations.
An employee of the Census Bureau, who spoke on condition of anonymity, has indicated to the public radio station (NPR) that they are working to be able to finish before January 9 their task of processing the data, as a prelude to finally delivering the census results.
“If we miss the January 9 date, it’s hard to imagine that we can make the distribution (of seats in the state House of Representatives and electoral votes)” before President-elect Joe Biden took office on May 20. January, the employee said.
And with Biden in the White house, Democrat could suspend Trump memorandum and decide what numbers he commands in the Congress for final certification.
As an example, and based on an analysis by the Pew Center on the Census Bureau’s population projections in 2019, it concluded that if Trump’s criteria were applied, California would lose two seats in the House of Representatives. instead of an already anticipated one, while Florida would win one instead of two and Texas would win two instead of three.
California is mostly Democratic, while Texas is Republican and Florida is considered the main hinge state, although in the last two presidential elections they have supported the Conservatives.