Census boycott threatened by Latino immigrant advocates

By Matt O'Brien
October 9, 2009

OAKLAND — The U.S. Census Bureau and its Bay Area partners might have activist Miguel Robles to worry about as they prepare to count every local resident in the 2010 census .

"Be counted" is the slogan the government will be spreading on billboards, bus advertisements and shopping bags in the months leading up to this spring's once-a-decade count of every U.S. resident.

"Don't be counted" is the contrary message espoused by Robles and some Latino groups who promise a widespread census boycott if Congress does not move to legalize the nation's millions of undocumented immigrants before April.

"We have to send a clear message that we don't want to be used," said Robles, director of the San Francisco-based Latin American Alliance for Immigrant Rights. "If these people decide not to be counted, the cities and counties will lose a lot of money."

While some say the boycott threat is overblown — an attention-grabbing initiative without legitimate support — the movement is worrisome to both the Census Bureau and the cities and counties that really could lose money and political power if a large number of people refuse to be counted.

The decennial census , mandated by the U.S. Constitution, is used to apportion congressional districts and decide where federal money will be spent.

Anyone who lives here — legally or not — is counted, and private records about them are kept confidential for 72 years.

Citing the importance to local communities of getting an accurate count, a number of Bay Area immigrant organizations are now trying to counter the boycott. They want to prevent the protest from gaining momentum in the region.

"My concern is the confusion it sows in an already confusing situation," said Catherine Tactaquin, director of the Oakland-based National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.

Undocumented immigrants, she said, are already reluctant to participate in the census because they are typically wary of federal officials because of deportation fears. But asking them to protest the census for political reasons could lead to an undercount that would end up hurting them more.

"I'm a little bit concerned about it," said Kristine Solseng, who is coordinating census efforts for Contra Costa County. "The Latino community was really active in 2000 in making sure Latinos were counted. This is kind of taking a big step backward."

Tactic questioned

Oakland resident Edgar Ayala said he sympathizes with the motivations behind the boycott. He also is waiting for an overhaul of federal immigration laws that would make life in America less harsh for undocumented immigrants, especially the Guatemalans he represents as director of the Guatemalan Immigrants' Movement.

A boycott, however, is not the way to get there, Ayala said.

"I think it's a good idea to use the census as an opportunity to show that immigrant communities, and specifically the Guatemalan community, are willing to be civically engaged, to come out of the shadows," he said. "It's also an opportunity for the immigrant community in general to show we are contributing to this society in terms of taxes and Social Security."

Boycott proponents offer a more pessimistic view of what would happen if undocumented immigrants participate, arguing that immigrants, both legal and illegal, are too often excluded from the federal, state and county programs that census proponents consider so important.

They have been sparring for weeks with pro- census Latino groups on Spanish-language media outlets and elsewhere.

"The ball's really in the court of the Democratic leadership," said boycott proponent Nativo Lopez, a prominent Southern California activist. "Latinos have done everything that's been asked of them. Immigrants have done everything that's been asked of them."

Lopez took to the radio waves Monday in an interview with Fernando Espuelas, host of the "Cafe Espuelas" program on the Univision Radio Network, that turned into a mudslinging match. Lopez, who won accolades for getting California Latinos to participate in the census in 1990 and 2000, says the boycott plan is borne out of frustration with the Obama administration's failure to take on immigration reform.

Impact unclear

What remains unclear, however, is how much of an impact he and the other boycott proponents have had.

"We can assure that we have a commitment of about 2.5 million members of our churches who will definitely not participate in the census of 2010," said the Rev. Miguel Rivera, leader of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, which was the first to call for the boycott several months ago.

The evangelical minister, however, declined to name any Bay Area churches that are spreading the boycott message. Rivera, who is based on the East Coast, said many of those same churches faced backlash last year for their support of Proposition 8, the statewide measure to ban same-sex marriage, and are wary of going public with another controversy.

Another evangelical leader, the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, of Sacramento, doubted those claims, describing Rivera's network as primarily a political advocacy group, not a church group. He also said he supported their intentions, but not the tactic.

"Boycotting the census is wrong. It's a mistake," said Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, which claims tens of thousands of Latino evangelicals nationwide. "At this moment, it hasn't reached a tipping point of concern. I do think it has the potential, though."

Rivera is not shy about the impact a successful boycott would have on California.

"We understand there is a possibility of losing representation in the House of Representatives," he said. "That is exactly what we would like to do."

Unusual alliance

That puts the boycotters in an unusual alliance of ideas with their fiercest ideological opponents — groups such as the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates reducing illegal immigration.

"The potential result (of a boycott) is the districts created in California as a result of illegal immigration would disappear," said Jon Feere, legal policy analyst for the center based in Washington, D.C. "Some might say that's a good thing because it increases the representation of citizens elsewhere."

Robles, the Bay Area boycott organizer, said the movement has barely gotten off the ground locally, but he said he is committed to it and knows many others who share his views.

"The most important thing is we demonstrate the value immigrants have economically," he said. "If other people think different, they should do something, not just criticize the actions we are going to do."