AOC Calls for Illegals To Skew House Seats, Electoral College by Urging Them To Participate in Census
Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York urged “every single person, no matter your documentation status,” to participate in the 2020 census, which threatens to rob citizens of their true representation in Congress.
Appearing on “Late Night with host Seth Meyers” on Thursday, the self-described democratic socialist said, “We’re all going to get census forms — we’re gonna get mailed a prompt to fill out the census in the next two weeks or so.
“And so I think what’s really important is that we all fill this out. It happens once every 10 years. Every single person, no matter your documentation status, no matter your housing status, income, etc., is to be counted.”
She went on to explain the census numbers are used to determine school funding, infrastructure spending, and “of course how many members of Congress each community gets.”
The freshman lawmaker warned that in some parts of New York that self-reporting for the census is about half of what officials would anticipate.
AOC reassured the census concerned that the information collected is “completely confidential.”
“Your census data is not shared with any other federal agency at all,” she said. “So don’t worry if you’re having a creative living situation, it’s not going to be told to your landlord or anything crazy like that. No worry. Totally safe.”
A report released in December by the fiscally conservative Empire Center in New York projected the state could lose up to two of its 27 congressional seats following the 2020 census.
One of the House seats that looks to be in jeopardy is the 14th District represented by Ocasio-Cortez.
The district, which includes parts of the Bronx and Queens, is made up of 47 percent foreign-born residents, according to The City.
The loss would happen after this November’s election.
It’s also worth noting the Electoral College total for each state, which is used to elect the president, is calculated by adding the number congressional seats plus the two U.S. Senate positions.
Making the counting of foreign-born all the more important for New York has been the net outflow from the Empire State to other parts of the country over the last decade.
“New York’s cumulative net domestic migration loss of 1,379,210 residents to other states since 2010 was the largest of any state in absolute terms, and second only to Alaska as a percentage of estimated population at the start of the decade,” the Empire Center said in the report.
According to the Center for Immigration Studies, the inclusion of illegal immigrants would mean New York would not lose seats but rather gain one.
“Illegal immigrants alone in … 2020 will redistribute three seats, with Ohio, Alabama, and Minnesota each having one fewer seat than they otherwise would have had, while California, New York, and Texas will have one additional seat,” CIS said.
CIS Director of Research Steven Camarota and demographer Karen Ziegler went on to argue in their report the inclusion of illegals for congressional apportionment violates the Supreme Court-established principle of “one man, one vote.”
In other words, one person’s voting power in one state ought to be more or less equal to that in another state.
However, if districts like AOC’s remain intact as those in other states disappear due to illegal immigrant populations, that is not fair to U.S. citizens whose votes have less of an impact.
“While one can at least argue that legal permanent residents who have not naturalized are entitled to representation in Congress because they are future Americans, illegal aliens and temporary visitors can make no such claim,” Camarota and Ziegler contended.
In a dumbfounding move, the Supreme Court ruled in July that the Trump administration had provided an adequate rationale for including the citizenship question in the 2020 census, so it was pulled.
“Seems totally ridiculous that our government, and indeed Country, cannot ask a basic question of Citizenship in a very expensive, detailed and important Census, in this case for 2020,” President Donald Trump said on Twitter after the ruling, adding, “Can anyone really believe that as a great Country, we are not able the ask whether or not someone is a Citizen.”
Now, it all comes down to how many illegal immigrants decide to cooperate in the census.
AOC is hoping their participation will be robust.
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