That’s why most of the $29 million the state appropriated for the census will be distributed as grants to community organizations, say statewide census directors Marishonta Wilkerson and Oswaldo Alvarez. ![]() It was important for Latino immigrants to hear that from a fellow Latino, believes Samuel, whose parents came to Chicago from Mexico: “When it comes to reaching certain communities, you need people who speak the language.” When Samuel appeared with state representative Chris Welch in Maywood, she had to reassure nervous attendees that their census forms would not be shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Griselda Vega Samuel, Midwest regional counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, sits on the Complete Count Committee and has been making census presentations at Chicago-area legislators’ town halls. “That whole discussion left a chilling effect in the community.” Her office is distributing literature in five languages to municipal libraries, assuring residents that their individual census information will not be made public for 72 years. “We’ve got a lot to fight in terms of government mistrust,” says Jeanine Stroger, who is coordinating the Illinois Complete Count Committee for the Illinois secretary of state’s office. Organizations that sued to keep the question off the census claimed it was intended to reduce the participation, and thus the political representation, of Latinos, who make up about 17 percent of Illinois’s population. While the Supreme Court rejected the question, just the fact that it was proposed has left many immigrants wary. This year, though, getting them to fill out a form will be even tougher, thanks to fears stoked by the Trump administration’s efforts to add a citizenship question to census forms. (Latinos are now the largest ethnic group in Aurora and Elgin.) It’s not news that immigrants - even legal ones - participate in the census at a lower rate than native-born Americans. And immigrants account for the population increase in the few parts of Illinois that are growing, especially the Fox River Valley. The state has 1.8 million foreign-born inhabitants, the nation’s sixth-highest total. Should that be the case, the state’s House delegation would get reduced to 16 seats, its fewest since Abraham Lincoln was president.Ī particular challenge for Illinois: its high percentage of hard-to-count residents, especially immigrants. According to the latest projections from the political consulting firm Election Data Services, that would only happen if residents were undercounted by more than 126,000. (Connecticut, Vermont, and West Virginia are the other states that had declines, but Illinois’s was steepest, with six consecutive years of losses.) But if the undercount is large enough, the state could lose two seats. Because its population dropped in the 2010s, Illinois is all but guaranteed to lose one U.S. ![]() Illinois’s investment is the third highest per capita, after California and New York. ![]() So it’s no surprise that Illinois is spending more than it ever has on the census, including $29 million from Springfield, $4 million from Cook County, and $2.7 million from Chicago. As a result, the state lost $122 million in federal health funding, according to the George Washington Institute of Public Policy. In all, the United States Census Bureau estimates it missed 59,800 Illinoisans the last time around. “Every employee is going to be a babbling idiot about the census.” The state can’t afford a repeat of what happened 10 years ago: Kids younger than 5 were undercounted by 36,000, costing Illinois $2,700 per child each year in federal assistance. “We’re going full bore on this,” says CEO Maria Whelan, whose nonprofit connects families with childcare and preschools. And throughout the winter, whenever parents have called in to check on the status of a childcare assistance application, they’ve heard a spiel about filling out the form. Partygoers played Census Klaus Bingo, in which the caller read out fun census facts. At each of the four holiday parties that Illinois Action for Children threw in December, the festive theme was the 2020 census.
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