I don't know anything, but if I were undocumented I'm pretty sure I would doing my best to avoid the census.

The Census Bureau has a good reputation for confidentiality -- rather like the IRS.

It's been interesting to watch the limits of presidential ability to fuck with the professionals. Maybe a smarter, better organized president would be able to do things like subvert the Census Bureau. But Trump can't even persuasively screw up public statements made by the National Weather Service.

Although we do have an IRS whistleblower saying the administration is interfering with the audit of either Trump or Pence. So you never know ...

You're overthinking this.

Everyone, answer the census! If you're participating in society enough that they can find you to get you a questionnaire, they know if you're a citizen. The census isn't going to help ICE track anyone down.

That is, the last sentence is dead on. The census litigation about keeping the question off the census was spearheaded by immigrant rights groups who want universal participation in the census. Trust them.

Like, I almost want to ask you to take this post down as socially counterproductive fearmongering, except that luckily no one reads this site anymore.

Ok, good. (I can update it to be more decisive.)

To the extent I've interacted with actual Census Bureau people, they're lovely nerds. Really passionately interested in good data collection.

Also, don't think of polar bears.

Can I not-think about elephants instead?

People should DEFINITELY be encouraged to participate in the Census. Among many other, better reasons, it's also legally required.

The fear of the Census Bureau doing dodgy things with the data is really about two things:

1) The risk of something similar to Japanese internment, in which individual people's Census responses were NOT released or shared, but general Census data about where groups of Japanese-American people were living WAS shared with other government agencies to assist in rounding people up (!!!). Obviously this was evil and the US govt has since apologized. Theoretically this should never happen again but clearly we are living in unusual times.

2) The risk of the Census Bureau matching people's 2020 Census responses with other "administrative" data from other federal agencies (which they have publicly acknowledged they are going to do, in order to improve general accuracy) and using that for nefarious purposes (which obviously they have NOT said they will do).

All of the many, many civil servants I've met from the Census Bureau have been truly lovely human beings who are amazing resources. I trust them completely. But their agency sits within the Commerce Department. I don't trust their boss.

That said, every nonprofit I work with is wholeheartedly recommending that people fill out the Census,* because the reasons TO are so much more powerful (federal funding, voter representation, political power) than the reasons NOT (remote chance** that Census info would be abused to persecute people).

*It is illegal to recommend that anyone fail to fill out the Census or leave any sections of the form blank. That said, many people have asked if they fill out 9 of 10 Census questions and leave one or two blank, will the Bureau bother to follow up with them, or just use "imputation" to guess at the most likely answer? The answer to that is that the Bureau has limited budget and limited people-power.

**The reason that it's a "remote" chance is the depressing reality is that ICE and similar agencies are already using widely available private and other data as well as "honeypot" traps to catch people already (anyone see how they picked up mom who makes pinatas on the side by contacting her on her Facebook page and trying to buy a pinata?). In other words, why bother with Census data when you can get so much else already in other ways?

10: Pervert.

I'm cishet. Very traditionalist.

In other words, why bother with Census data when you can get so much else already in other ways?

This is an excellent point.

Anyway, when would useful data start becoming available to other agencies? If it's more than about a year from now this administration doesn't give a shit.

Also a good point.

In other words, why bother with Census data when you can get so much else already in other ways?

Don't want to fearmonger but I wouldn't put it past ICE to use fake Census workers or the like as a honeypot just because they might want to decrease participation by immigrant communities because they are evil fucks.

I don't want to be paranoid, but they could hire trolls to post stuff on obscure blogs that will scare immigrant communities away from participating.

when would useful data start becoming available to other agencies?

Depends. This is the first-ever online-first Census, so households will be prodded twice to fill out their forms online before they finally get a paper form. Theoretically the online forms are safe and secure, but I am underwhelmed by the assurances I've heard.

Regardless, data from the Census Bureau's other surveys suggest that a fairly sizable percentage of people WILL respond online, which theoretically makes information available almost immediately to the federal government. Though again, there actually are strict laws about the privacy of individual census data responses, so it's anyone's guess how long it would take the Bureau to aggregate and anonymize datasets for sharing.

I wonder if the on-line part means there's no need for us to have the usual fight over who is head of household.

20: Meaning that you, your wife, your son, and your imaginary rented parrot, can each fill out a form online claiming to be head of household?

We returned the parrot, but didn't get the deposit back because we ate part of the parrot.

22: Sorry to hear that. Please accept my condolences for the deposit.

21: In that scenario one of the Census Case Investigators would be dispatched to your residence immediately to resolve the discrepancy and determine who is the true Head of Household.

Apparently, there is a contraction between two rules. I have the penis, but, for legal reasons, I don't claim to own the television.

I think the contraction is between two OTHER THINGS, if you know what I mean.

Householder

The householder refers to the person (or one of the people) in whose name the housing unit is owned or rented (maintained) or, if there is no such person, any adult member, excluding roomers, boarders, or paid employees. If the house is owned or rented jointly by a married couple, the householder may be either the husband or the wife. The person designated as the householder is the "reference person" to whom the relationship of all other household members, if any, is recorded.

The number of householders is equal to the number of households. Also, the number of family householders is equal to the number of families.

Head versus householder. Beginning with the 1980 CPS, the Bureau of the Census discontinued the use of the terms "head of household" and "head of family." Instead, the terms "householder" and "family householder" are used. Recent social changes have resulted in greater sharing of household responsibilities among the adult members and, therefore, have made the term "head" increasingly inappropriate in the analysis of household and family data. Specifically, beginning in 1980, the Census Bureau discontinued its longtime practice of always classifying the husband as the reference person (head) when he and his wife are living together.

Given the number of conservatives who are really, really angry that the Census Bureau's American Community Survey asks if your house has flush toilets, I'm surprised there hasn't been more squawking about this.

Signed, a female householder.

27: Thanks, Witt! Informative and interesting!

Agree with 28 but I personally could have used more information about the flush toilet thing...

There's not much more to it than Witt's summary. The Census Bureau has for many decades asked about flush toilets on the ACS (which is an annual survey, separate from the decennial census, sent to a sample of households) as a way to gauge how many people still didn't have indoor plumbing. At some point in the fairly recent past some right-wingers noticed this and decided it was an attempt by the jackbooted government thugs to steal their precious bodily fluids or something, and they've been hollering about it ever since.

They dont mind the rest of the survey, just the toilet question?

They like to argue that poverty in America is only relative poverty and that anyway the poor get huge amounts of government money. The number of people living in houses without indoor plumbing doesn't help their argument.

Who needs indoor plumbing?

Any human population more densely packed than about a half-dozen households per square mile.

Also, maybe a bear that's on the tundra or prairie. That's not something I've heard about either way.

31: They mind some others too (this 2014 Pew article gives an excellent recap of the situation), but the toilet one has gotten by far the most traction and publicity. I've seen it repeatedly from a wide variety of conservative commentators, activists, and even individuals.

I spend way too much time online figuring out what people are thinking politically, but I'm at a loss as to either why people would be upset about that, or why the people upset about it would be conservatives.

The census does not, on the other hand, ask whether I am Catholic.

38: You were the primary intended beneficiary of Public Law 94-521.

34. Over half of the population of India begs to differ. Modi is trying to change this, but with rather limited success.