Mandated by the Constitution, the decennial census is conducted every year ending in a zero. Its purpose is to count every resident and where they live. The data collected is used to appropriate representation in the House of Representatives, allocate federal money and much more.

Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross ordered the Census Bureau to add a question to the census form asking about a person’s citizenship. The ISD Editorial Board believes that including a question on citizenship threatens the accuracy of the census and further divides our populous along partisan lines.

It is important to note that the Census Bureau is legally barred from sharing any individual respondent’s answers with any other government agency. However, simply adding a question about a person’s citizenship has the very real potential to reduce its accuracy and drive up the already high cost of conducting the count.

It is because of this threat of an inaccurate count that has lead a group of 17 states (including Iowa), seven cities and the U.S. Conference of Mayors to file a lawsuit against both the Census Bureau and Department of Commerce.

The logic is simple.

States with high or growing numbers of foreign-born residences will be undercounted and, therefore, underrepresented in Congress and underfunded based on their populations. Two important things to note include: 1) the Constitution requires the Census Bureau to count every resident living within the U.S. regardless of their citizenship status and 2) questions regarding citizenship are already asked by the Census Bureau in the American Community Survey and comply with the requirements set out in the Voting Rights Act.

As the previously mentioned lawsuit alleges, including the question on citizenship may be unconstitutional if it leads to an inaccurate count. The alternative solution involves the Census Bureau spending more time, money and resources to ensure an accurate count. This would add to the ballooning cost of conducting a census which cost $13 billion in 2010 and is expected to cost $15.6 billion in 2020.

Potentially unconstitutional, an increased likelihood of an inaccurate count and the fact that including the question doesn’t align with the Census Bureau’s own standards for adding questions leads one to ask ‘why?’ Is the Trump Administration’s hatred of immigrant populations so strong that they are willing to hijack a constitutionally mandated survey that helps ensure we are a government for the people, by the people?