MADISON'S BIG CENSUS QUESTION: WILL HISPANICS BE COUNTED? - WHILE CIVIC LEADERS TRY TO QUELL DEPORTATION FEARS, THE NEW ARIZONA LAW HAS SOME ON EDGE.

Steven Verburg
May 10, 2010

With more than 300 census workers in Dane County knocking on doors of those who didn't mail in census forms, community leaders in Madison voiced renewed concerns that Hispanic immigrants might avoid being counted.

"I hope to be wrong on that, but I think we are going to have an issue," said Veronica Lazo, service coordinator at Centro Hispano of Dane County and a member of a committee that worked to maximize local participation.

Hispanic leaders have worked hard to quell unfounded fears that filling out the forms exposed illegal immigrants to higher risk of deportation. But recent enactment in Arizona of a controversial law requiring police to investigate anyone they suspect of entering the United States illegally has stoked worries, Lazo and others said.

"That's not going to make you want to fill out a form for the government," Brian Grady, a Madison city planner in charge of assisting the U.S. Census Bureau locally, said of the Arizona law. "If someone hasn't sent in the mail-in response by now, I wonder if they're going to want to talk to someone who comes to their door."

Wisconsin led the nation with 81 percent of households mailing in forms by the April 28 cutoff. Dane County's overall rate was slightly higher than the state rate, but tracts with high levels of rental housing, low incomes and large numbers of Spanish speakers were as low as 64 percent. Census "enumerators" already have canvassed campus areas to catch students before classes end. Now the effort is concentrated in other low-response areas, mostly along the Beltline in Madison, the town of Madison and Fitchburg. Since May 1, nearly 1,000 have been working in the 10-county Madison region. The number nationally is 600,000. The goal is to complete the work in July.

Pushing for complete count

The 2000 census overcounted affluent whites and undercounted minorities, according to a census report. This year the bureau is pushing for a complete count, as mandated by the Constitution, because census numbers affect the distribution of political power and the geographic disbursement of $400 billion in federal aid for medical care, roads and other services.

Ashley Halase, 21, is a Baraboo native who lives in the Fitchburg end of one of those Dane County tracts with a low response rate. She says she and her husband, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, won't fill out their form because they don't want the government to have his name.

"I've heard people say that they were using it to find out how many people are in the United States illegally," Halase said. "You never know, especially with these things happening in Arizona."

Their marriage last year gave him an avenue to U.S. citizenship, but applying now would mean possible fines and a requirement to spend a year in Mexico because he's been here without documents so long, she said.

An illegal immigrant who isn't worried about filling out his form is Edgar Sanchez, who moved here from Mexico City in 1996 and hasn't become a citizen. He said he doesn't want to be deported because life is better here for his family. But he's already sent in his census form.

"Everybody's concerned about it," said Sanchez. "If the police send me back, I can't help that. I just worried for too much time. Not anymore."

Reflecting neighborhoods

U.S. Census Bureau policy is to hire local residents for door-to-door work in their own neighborhoods, but Lazo and the Rev. David Smith, chairman of the committee of local officials who promoted census participation, said they haven't been able to get answers about how well the enumerators reflect the county's black and Latino makeup.

"The value of getting African-Americans and Latinos is because it reflects the neighborhoods and people feel more comfortable with people who look like they do," said Smith, interim director of South Madison Health and Family Center-Harambee and pastor of Faith Community Christian Church.

Lazo echoed Smith's concerns, and added that having fluent Spanish speakers was crucial to winning trust of recent immigrants.

Centro Hispano staff members spent many hours persuading suspicious Latinos to mail in census forms, and more time trying to recruit Spanish speakers to go door to door, she said.

The bureau will only hire U.S. citizens, although exceptions can be made for Spanish speakers who have permanent resident status or work visas. Some who are here legally backed off when they were asked to give their fingerprints for the FBI, Lazo said.

"It was really hard to overcome that," Lazo said. "It was part of the whole distrust the community has with the legal system."

Muriel Jackson, a spokeswoman in the census regional office in Chicago, said the bureau's goal is to hire census takers who reflect the community, but the bureau won't release information about how well it did in hiring Spanish speakers, minorities or residents of neighborhoods with low response rates and a high risk of undercounts.

Pat Ryan, manager of the Madison office, said on Thursday that he would release a report on the number of Spanish speaking census workers, but he didn't return phone calls Friday.

The FBI does criminal background checks on all field workers.

"We don't want criminals going to people's doors," Ryan said.

HOW IT WORKS
Census takers visit all addresses that haven't mailed in a form. If nobody comes to the door, the census taker will visit a home up to three times and try by phone three times. Census takers will ask only the questions that appear on the census form.
CAN YOU SAY NO?
Participation is required by law, (Section 221, of Title 13 of the U.S. Code), but census officials say they prefer to persuade people by pointing out that the count guides distribution of $400 billion in federal aid.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
LOOK FOR ID
Residents approached by census workers should look for identification, said Brian Grady, a city planner who has been assisting in the count. 'All census takers carry an official ID and shoulder bag which have the U.S. Department of Commerce seal,' Grady said. 'They will provide an information sheet explaining that responses are confidential and will only ask questions that are on the form. People should keep in mind that these folks are from the community and are working on behalf of all of us.'