Census Bureau: We’ll Work with ‘Community Organizations’ to Count All Illegal Aliens in 2010

Thursday, April 02, 2009
By Nicholas Ballasy, Video Reporter

(CNSNews.com) - The acting director of the U.S. Census Bureau, Thomas Mesenbourg, told CNSNews.com that the bureau intends to work with community organizations to make sure every illegal alien in the United States is counted in the 2010 Census.

The Census is used to apportion the seats in the U.S. House of Representative. There are 435 House seats that are divided among the states in proportion to their population, which is determined by the decennial census. States with more people get more seats in the U.S. House.

This means that a state harboring more illegal aliens can gain more House seats as long as the Census Bureau finds the illegal aliens and counts them. This also means that the illegal alien population resident in the United States during a census year has the potential to alter the regional and philosophical balance of power in Congress.

Mesenbourg’s comments were made after a press conference on Wednesday where Commerce Secretary Gary Locke joined several interest groups, including Univision, the National Council of La Raza, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) to talk about efforts to ensure a full count of Latinos in the 2010 Census.

When asked whether he intended to maximize the count of illegal aliens in next year’s census, Mesenburg said: “Our job is to count everyone that resides in the U.S.--count them once. So, certainly that’s our goal to count every individual, every resident whether they’re documented, undocumented, whether they are citizens or non-citizens.â€