All Nevada communities depend on the census

By Ingrid Lopez

Wednesday, April 1, 2020 | 2 a.m.

Some communities face complications to getting counted in the U.S. Census, which can prevent a full and accurate count. That’s certainly the case in Nevada, where an undercount could hurt our state for years to come.

Las Vegas’ growing population is one of those issues. From July 2017 to July of 2018, about 50,000 Californians moved to our city. That’s a dramatic population shift that should be accounted for in federal budgetary decisions for the next decade.

Now more than ever, our state requires funding. And considering that the 2020 U.S. Census results will be used to determine how much federal funding each state receives for numerous grants and programs, we need each person to participate.

This federal funding benefits everyone in our community, supporting a range of social services and educational programs, along with infrastructure improvements. The census also is used to determine each state’s number of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, meaning Nevada’s political power in Washington is also at issue.

Among the undocumented community, one of the principal worries is that information provided to the Census Bureau will be turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. I am the daughter of parents with mixed immigration status and my parents did not self-report for the census in 2010 because of that worry. Here in Nevada, immigrant communities are one such group facing barriers to reaching an accurate count. It is common for some immigrant families, or even households, to have mixed citizenship status, which can lead to hesitation in reporting personal information on an official government document.

But regardless of their citizenship status, people should feel confident their information is protected, thanks to Title 13 of the U.S. code. This makes census information confidential for 72 years and prevents any sharing of census data to other people or government agencies. Census Bureau officials take an oath to protect the information of everyone they gather data from, and there are harsh penalties for violators, such as being fined up to $250,000 and serving up to five years in prison.

Fear and lack of knowledge prevents some communities from filling out the census. It is the duty of everyone to make sure all communities feel safe and understand the benefits of completing their census. Our state funding for 10 years is dependent on everyone self-reporting each person living in their household.

To put this in perspective, about 20% of the state’s population are immigrants, while one in six Nevadans are native-born U.S. citizens with at least one immigrant parent. Imagine if that 20% of the population was undercounted because of a stigma related to the census. The lower federal funding your local government would receive over the next decade as a result would be damaging, to say the least. To combat this risk, local governments and community advocacy groups are working hard to be sure everyone is counted.

Filling out the census takes just a few minutes. That’s a small investment of time in exchange for 10 years of federal funding our state relies on. Take 10 minutes to fill out your census today at my2020census.gov.

Ingrid Lopez is the administrative assistant for the Institute for a Progressive Nevada. She was born in Guatemala.