[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - Everything you want and need to know about the US census.

Two people who know it well.

Brandon McKoy is the President of the Fund for New Jersey, an underwriter of our programming.

And Erik Cruz Morales, Director of Democracy at the League of Women Voters in New Jersey.

Good to see you, Brandon and Erik.

- Good to see you.

- Thanks for having us.

- All right, so let's jump into this.

Both of you wrote an op-ed on the back end of June 2026.

It's about the census and people can find it on NJ Spotlight.

Here it is.

I'm going to read a section.

Brandon, I want you to respond to this.

For much of the country's history, the census was scientific and apolitical.

We counted on those living in our state and were allocated federal funds and representation.

Under the first Trump administration though, the census became politicized with unfounded claims that it was a tool of fraud and deception.

Make the case.

Go ahead, Brandon.

- Well, I mean, the census has been a cornerstone of our democracy since the beginning of the country.

It is a source of vital data and information that everybody uses even if they don't realize it.

Everybody from policymakers to businesses to journalists to universities are using data from the census to make crucial decisions about where are they going to cite their factory?

Where are they going to pursue workers?

How are they going to make decisions about markets?

All that is census data.

And it is important that it be free of politics.

It is important that it be driven by accurate scientific processes because what we're determining is, you know, what does our country look like?

What is the reality of the country that we live in?

Where are people located?

What are the needs that they have?

And we can't do a good job of understanding that and by extension, addressing the challenges that face our communities heading into the future if we don't have accurate and reliable data.

- So Erik, from your perspective, following up on Brandon's point, you wrote about this in the op-ed and people should read it.

What has become politicized or what was politicized in 2020?

What concerns do you have of being politicized in 2030, much less states trying to do reapportionment in the middle of a 10-year census in Texas or California and other places?

Go ahead, Erik.

- Yeah, that's a great question.

And in 2020, we saw the Trump administration aggressively pursue a citizenship question that would, the participation from immigrant communities and communities with mixed status households, this time around, we're seeing much more aggressive efforts by the Trump administration to get a citizenship question into the census.

So they're pursuing this through- - Hold on, let's be specific.

Is the Trump administration saying that if you are not a documented citizen, you should not be counted?

Is it as simple as that?

- Yes.

- Well what makes it complicated when you do that?

- It changes you know, the representation of many states like New Jersey.

New Jersey is a very diverse and heavily immigrant populated states, one out of four New Jerseyan is an immigrant.

So having a citizenship question on the census form would have an inaccurate count of who's living here in this state and we could potentially lose a congressional seat here in New Jersey.

So states that have big and diverse immigrant populations would be impacted by this.

And this is something that is complimenting the mid-cycle redistricting battles that we're seeing across the country.

And so they're targeting, you know, they're going through this in both ways, through the census and through redistricting process.

- Brandon, pick up that point.

Help folks understand if someone were to say, devil's advocate, "Hey, why should people who are undocumented be counted in the first place?

They're not American citizens.

And even if they live in New Jersey, they shouldn't be counted."

Help folks understand why that matters in addition to what Erik said, and also what the impact and the implications are from a practical financial representation point of view, federal funding point of view.

Please, Brandon.

- So, you know, the census count at the end of the day is about money and power, right?

And if we're going to imply that people who are not citizens don't get to get counted, what we're doing is we are both being, I would say, silly about the impact on our communities.

Even if someone is not a documented resident, it does not mean that they don't have needs, that they don't contribute to our communities, that they don't have massive impact on the ability of our communities to succeed.

And so we're not going to count folks just because they are an undocumented resident.

We are basically sticking our head in the sand about what are the needs facing our communities.

And for states that are basically portals and gateways into the country like a New Jersey or a New York or a California or a Texas, you know, these are the states where when people come to America, they are first coming into these states.

We need to understand exactly what is the sort of shape and scale of the population in these places so that we can actually provide the services and programs and infrastructure necessary for folks to succeed.

And just because someone is undocumented does not mean that they are any lesser than, right?

They are contributing to this country, they're contributing to their communities, they're going through the process of immigration.

And to say that someone is undocumented, therefore they shouldn't be counted, I think is a defeatist attitude and a nihilistic one.

- Erik, let me follow up on this.

So the US Census Bureau is legally responsible for counting citizens in every state, correct?

- Yes, that's correct.

Every person under the Constitution.

- Got it.

There are 435 members of the House of Representatives.

That number doesn't change, but how each state has X number of members of the House of Representatives does change because in 2010, if I'm not mistaken, New Jersey went from 13 members of the House of Representatives of the 435, trust me on the math here, I'm right, to 12.

Are you saying, and Brandon saying that if in fact the number of New Jerseyans is under counted, however that plays out, undocumented, documented, whatever, and also the US Census Bureau is cutting back on the number of people counting people in the census, that New Jersey could actually lose another member of the House of Representatives, A and B, what would that potentially mean if that happened?

- Yeah, that would be big.

And you know, that's why New Jersey needs to be preparing for 2030 right now.

We would lose federal resources.

Members of Congress bring a lot of federal dollars to their districts.

Having one less voice in Washington would mean people in New Jersey are less represented in Congress.

And so that would have big impact on communities.

And so, you know, I think the state needs to prepare right now because regardless if this rule goes into effect or not, there's a lot of - - What rule?

What rule?

- Mistrusting, I mean... Sorry, the citizenship question.

If it ends up on the census survey, you know, regardless, there's a lot of confusion, distrust, and especially with the federal immigration enforcement that is happening under this administration, there's a lot of distrust.

So there's a lot of things that are happening already that are going to impact a town in 2030, potentially losing a lot of federal dollars and congressional representation.

And that locks us in for the next 10 years.

- Okay Brandon, let me ask you this.

I mentioned the cutting back on the number of professionals working at the US Census Bureau.

That matters, doesn't it?

A, and B, do you think that's intentional?

- Definitely matters.

You know, when you have fewer staff, makes it harder to successfully do your job.

Imagine if your staff at your studio, say you had five less people, would it be, you know... It'd be harder to do what you're doing on a daily basis.

So you don't want to see staff get cut.

Whether it's intentional or not, I think there has been a streak of, you know, a desire by this administration to cut department sizes and to sort of implement budget austerity.

And the impact of that is that we have, you know, poor public programs, more poorly performing government departments.

And so New Jersey needs to do what we can do on our own regardless of what the federal government does to make sure that we're funding our census.

Because I think a good example is in 2020 New York State actually fell 80 people short of keeping their congressional seat.

If they had just counted another 80 people, they would've not lost a congressional seat.

And so the margins really are that thin.

So that's why we want to make sure that we are funding as much as possible census work, census, you know, people to count folks, people to update maps and to understand basically what our state looks like so that we can have a full census count and not just avoid losing a congressional seat, but, you know, if you remember in 2020, the assumption was we were going to lose hundreds of thousands of people.

I don't know if you remember everyone said, everybody's fleeing New Jersey.

You know, we're having a whole lot of outflow of population.

We gained 500,000 people, right?

We increased in population.

And so if we do a good job of counting, we will actually probably, you know, see another increase given recent trends.

But if we don't do a good job of counting, all we're doing is leaving money on the table and we're not getting our fair share of federal resources.

- To find out more, check out the websites have been up for the Fund for New Jersey and the League of Women Voters.

Brandon and Erik, we appreciate you joining us.

Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

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