Texas Elected Officials Best Path To Trump On Census Memo
Nation’s Leading Latino Civil Rights Organization Says Bi-Partisan Approach Will Protect Millions of Dollars in Federal Funds for Texas
Washington, DC - The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) today urged Texas Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz plus the Texas Congressional Delegation and Governor Greg Abbott to work together in the interest of saving Texas from losing millions of dollars apportioned from the results of the 2020 Census as well as representation in the House of Representatives. President Trump’s memo calls for millions of people to be cut from the census count on the basis of being undocumented immigrants.
“If there was ever a reason to set partisan politics aside in the interest of Texas, it’s now,” says Domingo Garcia, National President. “Cutting out untold numbers of respondents from the U.S. Census using some formula no one’s even seen could mean 100,000 or 500,000 in states with large immigrant populations like Texas. We just don’t know but what we do know is that the people who will suffer most are the hardworking taxpayers of the Lone Star State. They stand to lose millions in federal budget dollars for education, health care, police and fire plus an entire new district in Congress. The only ones who can convince President Trump not to do this are these politicians,” adds Garcia.
The White House issued the full text of the President’s memorandum which reads in part: “Excluding these illegal aliens from the apportionment base is more consonant with the principles of representative democracy underpinning our system of Government. Affording congressional representation, and therefore formal political influence, to States on account of the presence within their borders of aliens who have not followed the steps to secure a lawful immigration status under our laws undermines those principles. Many of these aliens entered the country illegally in the first place. Increasing congressional representation based on the presence of aliens who are not in a lawful immigration status would also create perverse incentives encouraging violations of Federal law.”
“Texas is being dealt a double blow,” says Garcia. “Not only does the state already have the largest number of medically uninsured residents; these losses from an artificially reduced census count by the Administration means Texas will suffer further losses and deeper deficits for years to come. Now is the time to stop it before it’s too late and LULAC stands ready to support a bipartisan effort to do so,” he adds.
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About LULAC
The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) is the nation’s largest and oldest civil rights volunteer-based organization that empowers Hispanic Americans and builds strong Latino communities. Headquartered in Washington, DC, with 1,000 councils around the United States and Puerto Rico, LULAC’s programs, services and advocacy address the most important issues for Latinos, meeting critical needs of today and the future. For more information, visit https://lulac.org/