Census Citizenship Question Rankles Rhode Island, Site of Only Count Test
PROVIDENCE, R.I.—A Rhode Island dress rehearsal for the 2020 census is turning into an early battleground for the Trump administration’s recent decision to ask respondents if they are U.S. citizens.
Last month, residents in Providence County began receiving a federal mailer asking them to answer 10 questions about their age, race and the size of their household. It is a trial run for the Census Bureau’s decennial population count, which will reshape the congressional district map and determine where billions of dollars a year in federal funds are spent.
Days after the government mailed the questionnaires, the Trump administration surprised census advisers with a new twist for the 2020 count: For the first time in decades, it will include a citizenship question.
The late decision means that question isn’t actually on the Rhode Island test. But elected officials and residents in Providence County, which has a booming Latino population, many of them undocumented, say it nevertheless looms large.
Officials are worried fear of interactions with the federal government, and suspicion the citizenship question could be wielded against them, could make some people less willing to participate in the dry run and the official 2020 count.
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