Mass. groups fight lawsuit that could upend census, representation
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A little-known lawsuit filed 1,200 miles away could have major implications for Massachusetts' political representation and federal funding.
The big picture: The 2020 census and its inclusion of undocumented immigrants continues to face challenges more than five years after the count's completion.
State of play: The latest legal fight, brought on by Missouri, would claw back Electoral College votes, a congressional seat and federal dollars from Massachusetts and other states with higher immigrant populations.
- The census doesn't distinguish between green card holders and immigrants with temporary protections or with no legal status, but a 2023 analysis from the Migration Policy Institute estimates that Massachusetts was home to at least 388,000 undocumented immigrants.
- That doesn't include the tens of thousands of residents who have Temporary Protected Status, student visas or other visas letting them live in Massachusetts.
The latest: The Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, whose network of nonprofits represents hundreds of thousands of immigrants, joined the lawsuit with the NAACP and a handful of California voters on Friday.
- MIRA argues a redo of the 2020 census excluding immigrants would undo all the work it had done, including educational and outreach training and 267,000-plus phone calls.
- It also argues such a change would be "skewing representation against the communities MIRA represents."
What they're saying: "If non-citizens were excluded from our census data here in Massachusetts, we could actually lose one congressional seat, as well as significant federal funding," MIRA's executive director Liz Sweet tells Axios.
- But for MIRA, she added, it comes down to the principles enshrined in the Constitution: "We believe that every member of our communities should be counted, should be considered."
Threat level: A 2020 census redo could cost Massachusetts funding related to education, public housing and health care — all of which Missouri claims Massachusetts and other states have stolen.
By the numbers: Massachusetts was home to more than 500,000 non-citizens in 2021, though advocates said at the time the tally was likely an undercount.
- Some immigrants, they said, likely felt deterred from participating in the count as President Trump sought to include a citizenship question and exclude non-citizens when calculating congressional representation.