Sample Comments to Submit to the Department of Commerce: link
Sample Comments from an Individual
I oppose the proposed addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. If this question is added, non-citizens are likely not to respond, and will go undercounted. As a result, my community will lose representation and is likely to receive less resources to support crucial programs that are life-sustaining. For example, young children and families that rely on WIC might not receive the food and support they need, thereby increasing hunger and poverty. The harmful effects of undercounting families and communities will have a negative impact for generations to come.</>
OR
I strongly urge the Commerce Department to deny the request to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. This question is intimidating to non-citizens because it raises their fear of deportation and raises their mistrust in the U.S. government. Low response rates means that our communities will not be able to secure vital government representation and funding. There will be many inaccuracies in the final count because people will either forgo answering the Census completely or will provide incorrect information. Please reject the request to add an untested citizenship question. It will only add costs to the Census and harm our communities in the process.
Sample Comments from an Organization
{Name of organization} strongly opposes the requested addition of a new, untested citizenship question to the 2020 US Census. Adding such question would have dreadful consequences for Californians, especially poor and low-income communities, families, seniors and children.
{Include any info about your organization’s mission, focus, history, etc.} Throughout our work, the Census is a vital tool in assessing and improving community outcomes. Local, state and federal programs rely on Census data to serve communities and to allocate our collective resources to the communities and individuals that are most in need. If Census counts are inaccurate and undercount households, it will severely impact our ability to accurately gague and respond to community needs, and could result in the reallocation of resources away from crucial programs and funding.
As such, we are very concerned that the untested citizenship question will depress response rates within immigrant-rich communities, including naturalized citizens, legal permanent residents, and members of mixed-status families. Undercounting foreign-born residents has an impact on entire communities and regions. Low census response rates of California’s population may lead to a detrimental decline in resources for infrastructure, education, public health, and food and nutrition programs. In addition, unreliable census counts threatens communities to lose vital government funding and representation.
{Name of organization} believes the proposed addition of the citizenship question to the Census threatens the ongoing work to eliminate hunger, mitigate poverty, {add any other goals here} in the California communities we serve. The addition of this question is short-sighted and harmful: it is bad for the Census, bad for our communities, and bad for the health and well-being of our country. For these reasons, we strongly oppose this major change to census policy requested by the Department of Justice.
