Census reaches out to Metro area Muslims

Catherine Jun
April 19, 2010

The Detroit News

Dearborn - At the close of a recent afternoon prayer, Muslim congregants filing out of a mosque on Outer Drive were instructed to do more than go in peace: Return their census forms.

"I remind you if you have not yet, return it," Imam Mohammad Mardini told about 500 congregants leaving the American Muslim Center on Friday. "It's our duty upon each and every one of us to return the forms."

After nine years of scrutiny post-Sept. 11, some American Muslims have become wary of the federal government, and census officials have been working with Metro Detroit mosques to ensure that people return their census forms.

"They listen to imams," said Rachid Elabed, who works with the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services, an agency in Dearborn that has partnered with the U.S. Census Bureau.

Muslims are not the only group the agency has identified as needing special attention, but they are among those likely to shun mail-in questionnaires. America's Muslim population includes many recent immigrants, and community leaders say nearly a decade of targeted scrutiny at airports and border crossings, and profiling in some communities, have taken a toll.

Mistrust of government persists

"We have a trust issue with the government," said Ahmad Nassar, who was hired by the Census Bureau to help educate Arab-American and Chaldean groups in Michigan on the importance of the national count. "They feel the heat in terms of being extra-checked and questioned more than anybody else."

Community leaders said mistrust persists despite the fact that the form has no check-off box for religion, nor boxes to indicate Arab or Persian ethnicity. The key message volunteers emphasize: The information is confidential and will not be shared with any other government department. Even the Patriot Act, the 2001 law that eased information gathering by law enforcement, does not trump the federal law requiring census confidentiality.

Nationally, the Census Bureau has teamed with organizations such as the American Muslim Interactive Network and the Muslim American Society to convince Muslims they have nothing to fear.

"We're like other Americans and want to be counted," said Mahdi Ali, a volunteer at the American Moslem Society, a mosque on Vernor Highway that draws mostly Yemenis. "There's no risk," he tells congregants.

Mack Nidik, a 34-year-old engineer, said he mailed in his form, since being counted could mean more federal dollars for his Dearborn community. But he was not convinced the information would not be compiled for other purposes, even though, under federal law, that is not permissible.

"I'm not sure about that," he said. "The government always takes advantage. But we are doing nothing wrong ... so I'm not afraid of anything."

Money and power at stake

At stake in the national count is roughly $400 billion in annual federal money to local communities. The census, conducted every 10 years, determines the apportionment of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Political experts already have predicted that Michigan, with its shrinking population, will lose one seat.

For several weekends, volunteers have gone door-to-door, targeting Arab neighborhoods in Detroit and Dearborn. Elabed said he had to educate newer immigrants who had never heard of the census.

Though instruction guides have been printed in 60 foreign languages, among them Arabic and Urdu, the language options for the questionnaires are more limited. Community leaders say their efforts appear to be working. Dearborn's participation rate is 70 percent, besting the national rate of 69 percent. But it is still lagging Michigan's 74 percent rate.