BOSTON – Eva Millona, CEO and President of the MIRA Coalition and Chair of the Statewide Complete Count Committee, today issued the following statement ahead of U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments in the case of Trump v. New York, in which the Court has been asked to determine whether undocumented immigrants can be excluded from the 2020 Census count for congressional apportionment purposes.
“The Trump Administration wants to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census count for purely political purposes. If successful, hundreds of thousands of undocumented and mixed status households in Massachusetts alone could be excluded from the count, which could result in weakened political representation, resource loss, and diminished trust in government and community organizations for immigrant communities. This runs against centuries of precedent and is neither feasible nor sound. This Administration has tried every step of the way to undermine the accuracy of the census count, specifically targeting our immigrant communities, and it must stop. Every single person across our nation and our Commonwealth must be fully counted.”
Background on the case
In July 2020, the Trump Administration issued a memorandum ordering the exclusion of undocumented immigrants from the apportionment base following the 2020 Census. The state of New York and a coalition of 20 states, cities and localities challenged the memorandum, which is now the case of Trump v. New York. MIRA’s former Director of Organizing and Census Manager Vatsady Sivongxay submitted an affidavit emphasizing the negative impact the exclusion would have on undocumented immigrants. Several MIRA members were also involved in an Amicus Brief on the case. The case is scheduled for oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court beginning at 10 am EST on November 30, 2020.
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