Thread: Sen. Burns Brings Leg. Excluding Illegal Aliens from Census

Burns: Illegal immigrants shouldn't be counted in Census

By MARY CLARE JALONICK Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Montana Sen. Conrad Burns has proposed excluding illegal immigrants from the congressional apportionment process, a move that could shift House seats from growing border states to smaller states with lower immigrant populations.

Burns, R-Mont., introduced legislation Tuesday that would require the Secretary of Commerce, who oversees the Census Bureau, to adjust the population numbers used to apportion congressional seats to exclude illegal immigrants.

The Census Bureau does not currently distinguish illegal immigrants in its population estimates gathered every 10 years.

Montana has one House seat for about 920,000 people, while the average member represents about 650,000. Burns says that the nation's estimated 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants are distorting Montana's congressional representation.

"If these trends continue, we will be looking at upwards of 15 million illegal aliens in the United States for the 2010 census, maybe more," Burns said Tuesday. "And the result will be more seats lost in states that have actually increased in population of law-abiding U.S. citizens."

Steven Camarota, research director at the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, says the proposal has good intentions but could be difficult to implement.

The Census Bureau could ask immigrants if they are in the United States illegally, he said, but that would require changing census forms and trusting people to answer the question honestly.

"The bottom line is that you are opened up to all kinds of legal and practical challenges," he said. "The way to fix it is to have a whole lot fewer illegals."

A 2003 report written by Camarota's group calculated that the presence of illegal immigrants cost Montana a seat it would have otherwise gained.

"Thankfully, my state of Montana cannot lose any more seats in the House of Representatives," Burns said. "We are down to our last one. Other states, however, will not be so fortunate."

http://www.helenair.com/articles/2006/0 ... 0burns.txt

Illegals should absolutely not be counted in the census!

I do not understand this, I watched the Republicans work on their new platform for next year on c-span, one of them brought this up and they argued about it extensively....they decided they did not need it in their platform because it was already in the law that illegals can not be counted in a censes.

Wish I could remember who it was that wanted to put this on their agenda

Originally Posted by SOSADFORUS

I do not understand this, I watched the Republicans work on their new platform for next year on c-span, one of them brought this up and they argued about it extensively....they decided they did not need it in their platform because it was already in the law that illegals can not be counted in a censes.

That statement is wrong, illegals ARE counted in the census, with LaRaza and "community organizers" make a big effort to ensure the census bureau counts ALL of the illegals!!

What crap!!

I must be getting it confused, I'll bet what happened is it was already a part of the Republican platform and I took it as it was already a federal law.

Burns, R-Mont., introduced legislation Tuesday that would require the Secretary of Commerce, who oversees the Census Bureau, to adjust the population numbers used to apportion congressional seats to exclude illegal immigrants.

Good luck with that one. Once Bill Richardson becomes the new Secretary of Commerce, this bill will never pass.