Immigrants and the Census in 2030

Listen to my podcast on Census 2030 here.

Leaders of immigrant support groups testified on October 31 before the Senate’s Committee on the Census. They testified that many non-citizens will likely avoid participation in the Census in 2030. Further, many of these leaders, who have in the past served as trusted messengers encouraging immigrants to participate in the census, said that they are unlikely to be able to play the same role in 2030. Their collective testimony offered little prospect of avoiding a dramatic undercount of immigrants in 2030. (Note that while only citizens over 18 get to vote, everyone, regardless of age or immigration/citizenship status, is counted for the purpose of allocating representation in Congress.)

I found the testimony poignant: The testifying leaders faced an uncomfortable dilemma. All of them have taken pride in helping immigrants meet their civic obligations and move towards lawful integration into American society. In the past, they have advised immigrants to “Stand up and be counted” in the Census. They recognize Massachusetts’ strong interests in assuring a complete federal Census count. And some hope to secure funding for outreach work for the 2030 Census. At the same time, most of them now seem to feel obliged to advise, at least tacitly, that their immigrant constituents consider avoiding any disclosure of information to government officials. They perceive the risks of detention and deportation to extend even to immigrants with documentation authorizing their presence in the United States.

The scope of the October 31 hearing was not limited to immigrant issues — it was about how, in general, to assure a complete count. All of the witnesses spoke to the kinds of work that they could do with early funding for outreach.

Below, I excerpt testimony pertaining to the particular challenges of engaging immigrants. I have lightly edited the excerpts to remove pause words, etc. The video of the full hearing can be reviewed here. Written submissions will be posted here.

Testimony of Sothea Chiemruom Cambodian Mutual Assistant Association.

. . .

For over 40 years, CMA has served as a trusted anchor for the Cambodian American, Southeast Asian and immigrant communities in Greater Lowell, a city that is home to the second largest Cambodian population in the United States. Our mission is to build bridges of opportunity, preserve cultural heritage, and ensure that families who came here as refugees and immigrant can thrive in full participation in Massachusetts civic life. . . .

The 2030 census will play a critical role in that mission. It is far more than a population count to us. It is a measure of visibility, equity, and belonging. The data collected determine how billions of dollars in federal and state resources are allocated for education, healthcare, housing, workforce development, and language access.

For our community, an accurate count is especially important. Many Cambodians and other immigrant community members, elders, family faces, barriers such as limited English proficiency, digital access, lingering distrust of government system due to historical trauma, and the real fear of government using their information for purposes other than population count. What I’m hearing currently is that our community members are afraid. Typically we have walk-in services and we have people who come in and we have had no issue getting their information so that we can provide the services we have. Now in recent months, in 2025, people are not willing to give up that information as much, hence certain things. We cannot provide services because of that fear. These challenges often result in undercount, which means fewer resources for program services that directly support families, youth, and seniors.

CMA is ready to lead in ensuring that we continue our deep engagement of our community members. In 2020. In 2020, we conducted extensive command language outreach, provided one-on-one census support partner with temple churches and neighborhood groups to reach households that might otherwise have been missed. We are prepared to do this again, but to do it effectively, we, we need early sustained investment and partnership from the commonwealth. . . .

Testimony of Amy Grunder, Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition

The impact of this administration’s unprecedented and extraordinarily aggressive immigration enforcement is profound and is likely to severely compromise immigrant participation in the census for years to come. . . . [A]rrests are ongoing as we speak . . . . Frontline organizations have reported the regular presence of ICE agents in front of Home Depot, grocery chains work, immigrant worker centers, food pantries, and other workplaces. . . .

[T]he enforcement is not just impacting immigrants without status. The administration has stripped protections, legal status, and work authorization from immigrants who are lawfully present and working in the United States. . . .

[O]ur most vulnerable immigrant state residents are essentially in lockdown. . . . [I]mmigrants are not reporting for work, not dropping off their children for school. School attendance is down in immigrant communities. They’re relying on neighbors and volunteer organizations to obtain food for fear of leaving their homes. We’ve learned of young adults left to support their families after the deportation of the family breadwinner. Many immigrants are choosing to return to their countries of origin themselves in order to avoid deportation. . . .

In the current context, it’s hard to imagine that immigrants will be willing to offer census information through the federal government. That has to be said. The US Supreme Court has just rubber stamped the use of racial profiling for immigration arrests. And so race and ethnicity can be used as a pretext for status, for lack thereof. That’s one of the things that people report on in the census. And now, especially we know that ICE has access to the personal data of immigrant taxpayers who have individual taxpayer identification numbers. They have access to Medicaid, the data of Medicaid enrollees through data sharing agreements.

So the fear of data sharing is quite real in our view. Everything depends on what happens in 2026 and 2028 in those elections. But even assuming that these elections yield a new administration that welcomes immigrants, immigrant leaders are telling us that they fear this trust has already been broken and that they cannot in good conscience ask their communities to participate in the census without informing them of the risks, which currently are substantial. . . .

(Continued testimony in response to questions): . . . I think the fears about data sharing are real and really concerning. And as so many people said today, they feel like they can’t in good conscience ask people to make themselves vulnerable [by responding to the Census].

Testimony of Patricia Sobalvarro, Agencia ALPHA

I want to give a little bit of context before I talk about my concerns . . . . Back in 2020, . . . immigrants were already on edge because of Trump 1.0. . . . [O]ur [census participation] outreach strategy relied on our work with the evangelical pastors from Worcester all the way through Lynn, Waltham, Brockton.

These are the areas where we have tons of hard to reach communities. . . . We had superheroes dressed up, standing on the corners of streets with their green census forms, and, we were visiting, ethnic restaurants. We were going to the parks where people were playing. . . . We were visiting the churches. We were, on social media. We were doing everything and anything possible to talk to people about the benefits of participating in the census. And I, want to say that I’m very proud of the work that we did on the ground with very limited funding. . . .

So I’m saying that if you fast forward to 2025, that outreach strategy is out the window. Now more than ever. We know that there’s a prominent ICE media surveillance program getting implemented. Now we’re telling our immigrant communities don’t go on social media. Church attendance is decreasing. We all know that parents are not sending their kids to school in the summer. We are telling people, don’t go to the pool. Don’t go to the parks. Don’t go out unless you really have to.

So I asked myself, how are we gonna do [census] outreach work? The reality is very different and is very real. We are living under this constant fear. People understand that the the mass deportation, mass deportations is the reality of their every day. There’s this heightened presence of ICE enforcement in East Boston.

Our agencies have had to invest in cameras because we can’t let anybody just enter our offices. So if before people were afraid and mistrusting of the government, it is obvious that this sense of mistrust, it’s even greater. The damage is already done. And I can’t emphasize that enough.

If before we were relying on volunteers to go out and talk to people, believe me, people are not gonna want to do that anymore. And, you know, we all have heard the, the phrase, well, there’s a great number of community members who live in the shadows. Maybe right now we want people to stay in the shadows, right? Because people are afraid of family separations.

And when I speak about the immigrant community that we work with, it’s not only the undocumented families, a great number of immigrant families are made up of mixed statuses, right? Mom could be the undocumented person, dad could be the DACA holder who’s lawfully able to work in the country, maybe they have kids. So if dad knows that by filling out that census form, he’s gonna put his family in danger, he’s not gonna want to fill out the form. I think about the other group of community members that we’re not talking about, the non-household members who are renters of rooms. They are also individuals that are really hard to count because they are not given permission to put their name on the mailbox, or they move frequently. So it is hard to follow up with them.

So, in closing, I just want to say that, my organization is one of those trusted messengers who will go out there and tell people about how important the census is. But truth be told, our immigrant community right now is in survival mode. And unless something changes, and as a community advocate, unless there are some guardrails put in place, unless we can get better assurance that our data is not going to be shared, unless we defeat certain proposals that right now in Congress wants to put citizenship question, unless there is enough money to hire people now for the next two, three years who can build trust, unless, we know that we’re not gonna put immigrants in harm’s way unless we have these guard hails guardrails. . . . This is a very difficult ask of, of us to tell people to complete the census. And like I said earlier, people right now are just trying to survive. So they’re just trying to figure out how do I go to work, come back, so I get to see my kids.

It’s very difficult for families at this moment to think of the benefits of the census. And unless something changes the next few years. We’re gonna have a very difficult time because I also know that, if we don’t participate in the census, the, the damage is gonna be horrible long term. But the reality is people are in survival mode right now, and that’s all they’re thinking about.

(Continued testimony in response to questions): . . . [W]e know now . . . that being Latino is now, a crime, right? Because I can be racially profiled if I speak Spanish, if I go to Home Depot, if I clean houses. . . .

Testimony of Heloisa Galvão, Brazilian Women’s Group

[T]he Brazilian women group has worked the last three censuses and we have come a long way. The beginning was very hard. There was no Brazilians working for the census, and Brazilians didn’t want to answer the census at all, didn’t know what was going on. But with time we were able to get some funding to do outreach. And also we are able to see Brazilians being hired, which made a huge difference. . . .

Right now, we are being hunted down on the streets, off the streets by masked men, armed men, and we disappear out of nowhere. Families and lawyers cannot contact the people. People are so scared that . . . they’re going nowhere. Some are going to the airport and leaving for good. . . .

What I want to bring here today is that for all these years we have old the people trust the government. File the income tax. Answer the Census. This data is going nowhere. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a status, it’s going nowhere. It is important to verify your tax. It is important that you respond to the Census. That’s how we get programs, that we have funding for so many important programs.

Now, how do I go back to my community, tell me how do I go back to my community and tell them, we lied to you. We have been betrayed by the government. You are gonna be hunted down, not only because you don’t have a status, but because you did your civic obligation. You filed your taxes and you answered the census and now you are in trouble. Deep trouble.

So that’s what I wanted to reflect here. You wanna tell me how I go on [and encourage people to participate in the Census]? . . . . [Y]ou may tell me “Oh yeah, you know, we’re gonna vote him out. He can’t be reelected. It’s gonna be different . . . . “

No, it’s not, because it’s very, very easy. It’s easier to destroy [trust] than to build. And what is happening, not only here is happening in my homeland in Brazil, is help happening all over. You know, is this narrative from the right wing about the need to destroy, to decimate people that don’t look like the whites or don’t feel their plans of what they consider make America great again.

So I don’t know where I go now. I am in a crossroads. [Even if there is a new administration in 2028], I’m not going to tell my community “trust the government because what happened is past, we are back on the road, we are back on the right path.” I don’t know where to go. I think answering the [census] form with the best answers is extremely important, but I’ll have to tell people, “yeah, you should answer the Census, but you can be, you know, you can be penalized for that.”

So that’s why I want to leave, and I’m sorry that I don’t have a positive message here because I’m really, really, concerned about what’s going on in this country. And right now, I, I don’t see how we’re gonna make it better. Thank you.

Testimony of Sara Kirubi, The Welcome Project

I wanted to share my perspective as a leader of a small nonprofit right now about what I’ve been seeing this year and how that will likely affect census efforts in 2030. Since the presidential inauguration, in January, we too have had a difficult time gathering the usual information from our constituents.

And we’ve struggled ourselves to determine what is safe and what is unsafe in terms of collecting and holding our constituents data. We receive a lot of skepticism and pushback from students in our classes around giving us information that we need from them to satisfy some of our donors, especially from federal funding sources that require information like addresses, race and ethnicity and income level, the type of information that’s needed for the census as well.

Some of our teenage interns who previously used their tax identification numbers to receive stipends from us are no longer able to do so for fear of IRS information being shared with ICE. We aren’t comfortable taking photos and videos with closeups of our students’ faces anymore. And this is of course referring to people who are actually showing up to our programs — many people have dropped out completely because they don’t even want to be out in public for anything not deemed as absolutely necessary. . . . In addition to these justified fears, misinformation is swirling online, which makes it difficult to separate real threats from scams and fearmongering, which also exist.

Our constituents have different levels of understanding of the risks associated with sharing their data. We found that some of them are extremely fearful and anxious right now and worry about divulging identifying information about themselves even to our trusted nonprofit, which they know would never willingly do anything to put them at risk. These people will absolutely not answer their door or the phone for unknown people, and they’re unlikely to provide their demographics and address online, potentially, even if we directly ask them to participate ourselves. We also have a separate group of constituents who are less aware of the dangers associated with data sharing, and they might be willing to provide their information.

But as an organization working to give immigrants the information they need to keep themselves and their families safe right now, how can we in good conscience, recommend to them that they should participate in the census and share that kind of sensitive information? What guarantees do we have that their information won’t be shared with immigration enforcement considering that deals like this have already been made with the IRS and other agencies?

So given the current climate of fear and intimidation surrounding our immigrant communities, I thank you all for really considering the many challenges that are going to occur in collecting accurate census data in 2030, especially if those creating this climate are still in power at that time. So I ask you to consider involving members of the immigrant community themselves in data collection to ensure trust in the process, but also ensure that trust in the process is justified with proper safeguards put in place as possible.

Testimony of Laurie Millman, Center for New Americans.

When we did the outreach for the 2010 census, we would tell people that there was a firewall between the census and the immigration offices. And I think that was largely accurate at that time.

When we did the outreach and the meetings with our own students in the 2020 census, that firewall wall was already fraying. And we had some very hard decisions to make about how hard to outreach with people who were not documented because we understood that there wasn’t the integrity of the process that there had been in the past.

At this point, the firewall is pretty much non-existent with the IRS. All the years that we told people to get an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, that this wouldn’t jeopardize their immigration status — all of that advice has been rendered irrelevant and fraudulent.

So I think we are at a really challenging point because we understand that an undercount will cost us in representation and funding and in understanding of what our population is. And yet as a trusted partner, it’s very hard for us to tell our constituents something that we understand is no longer true.

So I don’t have solutions, I’m sorry, but I think it’s important as someone who has done this work in the past two censuses to say that the, the, the climate has been deteriorating for the last 10 years and, we are really at a crossroads.

Gladys Vega, President of La Colaborativa

. . . [So much trust has been broken. . . . These are the things that I hear all the time . . . when we think about the census: First, why should we participate? We contribute, we work hard. We pay taxes, but . . . never get any protections, especially during this era of so much hate with the immigrant communities. Our families are being kidnapped and separated. Why does it matter if we get counted if we are not seen? . . . We are just a number. And the numbers don’t translate for resources because many of those resources we cannot apply for. Those are the . . . voices of our community.

. . . Remember that the census would come two years after the Trump administration. . . . It has taken me 37 years to build trust and every day . . . a new family moves in. Trust is not built overnight and we have to be very deliberate in doing work in Massachusetts that allows for us to be extremely proactive, understanding the damage that the federal government has caused.

And this is another federal is department that is coordinating the census. The issue of sharing information . . . is a concern.

. . . [testimony on how resources could be effectively used to build trust].

[In 2020] ?we were undercounted. We were under counted. . . . [In 2010] we were counted probably 35,000 people in Chelsea. 2020. After 10 years we had had unaccompanied minors in our city. A huge rush of 2014, all the children in the borders that came to Massachusetts in our school system, only 795 students enrolled. We had a high school expansion. We have the Clark Elementary School expanded and we had over 1000 apartments being built, luxury apartments being built and, and for the renters here, nowhere to live because we are overcrowded. And when we did the 2020 count, if I’m not mistaken, it was like 42 or 44,000, um, people that live in the city of Chelsea.

As we write grants in our city for funding the number that we use is pretty much 65,000 to 70,000 people that live in the city of Chelsea. Talk about under counted, I mean, we had a fire in the summer, three apartments, 38 people were displaced and we had to open my office to put an air mattress ’cause we could, the city of Chelsea couldn’t find hotels and we had ’em all sleeping with us here with my, my president, my, me as the president and my vice president sleeping on the floors here with 38 people that were victims of a fire in a triple decker. So when I tell you that we were one of those gateway cities that was completely under counted, that’s who we were. . . . So let’s figure out that focus on those community that usually are under counted. If you see the growth of all these apartments in the city of Chelsea, and I can point you out at them.

. . . This decade is gonna be much, much harder because now you have the trust issue as the biggest factor in participating. Why are we gonna give you data? It’s bad enough that I’m constantly feeling guilty at home, at nighttime. Oh my god, we processed in my past five years over 1000 people to get ITIN numbers and so they can pay Uncle Sam tax money so they can show good character in case we get legalization. And now with the Trump administration, I’m like, why the hell did I do that? What about if that information is shared? You cannot imagine all the guilt trips that I go through. At nighttime seeing how families are being separated.

So just want to highlight how important it is to know that in cities like ours, the under count is in the 20,000s, not 5,000, no 4,000. I would say probably under counted by 25 to 30,000 people in our city. Because why would we have high school expansion? Why would we build the Clark Elementary School? Why would we have all these luxury apartments and only have a difference of a couple of thousand people in 10 years?

. . . I tell you that although the 2020 Census was an undercount, I’d rather be in an era of COVID than in an era of hate.

For me, this is why 2030 is gonna be so important for all of us together to figure this out ahead of time, because there’s so much need and despair, and there’s so much unrest in our communities, that it is very hard to trust you all as government officials. And although every opportunity that I have a platform to speak, the, uh, Massachusetts, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts would never do certain things that other states are doing, et cetera, that we are, you know, that we are, that we love them, that we don’t care where they come from. That, you know, we don’t believe that all of the you are criminals. If you are heading to work and you get detained and you have your tools in the car. It wasn’t cocaine, it was tools. Right. So we try all the time right now to put those messages of trust in our community, because we never want to go back to, to this situation where they don’t even trust us.

You know, how hard it is to, you know, the victims of domestic violence come to LA collaborative and not to the Chelsea Police Department because we’re the trusted agents. Um, the responsibility that we hold is huge. But I think that for us in this time of, of many people feeling that government doesn’t want them in this country and legal residents, many of our community members are also legal residents.

It’s gonna be hard to convince them that this government is different, that we are different. . . I think that what people are basically saying is that they have no hope for municipal government. We have a city manager that is Latino. When, you know, when business people went to talk to him, 30 of them two weeks ago, he basically said, listen, I can’t worry about business people because you having no one in the city buying and shopping on Broadway and, and you are about to to close down. Because as the city manager, I, my priority right now is focusing on the $6 million that I will lose in school funding because 400 parents decided not to send their children to school.

So in a community like mine, the challenges are so diverse, is so rooted in this, in this image that, that they’re all criminals and they’ve been here for 20, 30 years and this is not our fault. We didn’t do the, we didn’t create this situation. But I think that as we invest in the health , and where to put the effort, we need to invest in the confidence of the people that we have lost and how we build that trust through local stakeholders to faith groups and to non-profit organizations and through our government institutions in Massachusetts.