Census officials aim to boost count
 
By Lee Davidson
Deseret News
 
Exactly one year from now — April 1, 2010 — the 2010 Census will attempt to count everyone living in America. The Census Bureau says it is working hard to prepare in Utah, and to convince everyone from polygamists to undocumented immigrants that it is in their best interest to participate.

"We have special arrangements with polygamists (in Hildale). We just met with them last week," for example, said Daniel L. Pacheco, a Census official working with hard-to-count groups.

"There were some concerns, but they know things that happened in Texas (in the FLDS raid there) did not come from release of Census data," Pacheco said. "They stand to benefit just like any other group, because the count determines the flow of $300 billion of federal money a year" to state and local governments based on population.

He added "The town of Hildale draws services. If they are not counted, they cannot draw the federal dollars necessary (for) community needs."

To help all groups feel more at ease with being counted, W. Todd Hansen, the Utah Census office manager, stresses that Census workers must take an oath of confidentiality not to reveal — for the rest of their lives — anything they find in their work, or they face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

"So if we see people growing pot in their house, or cooking drugs, or if there's a lot of illegal immigrants there, or they just robbed a bank or whatever, we can't reveal any of that information," Hansen said.

"We not only don't ask if you are here legally," he said, "We don't have any authorization to ask, we don't have any place to record that information, (and) we couldn't do anything with the information if we did have it."

Hansen said Federal Drug Enforcement Agency once staked out a house where they believed a drug operation was ongoing, and attempted to get Census counters who visited it to tell them who was inside. They refused, "and it went all the way to the Supreme Court," which upheld laws banning Census officials from disclosing such data, he said.

"A big part of our mission is to convince people that this is absolutely confidential," Hansen said.

Sergio A. Martinez, another Census official who works with hard-to-count groups in Utah and is himself an immigrant from Mexico, said the Census has been working with immigrant groups, churches, civic organizations and others who are trusted by immigrants.

"One of the key strategies for us in gaining support and confidence from these people who are afraid of anybody wearing a badge from the government is to make sure that the message comes from a trusted voice in the community," he said.

So why is the Census telling undocumented immigrants and others they should bother to participate in the Census?

"It is a privilege to be counted as a resident of the United States," Martinez said. "This brings pieces of $300 billion every year from the federal government into their communities. This translates into better roads, better recreation centers, better schools, better teachers — bilingual teachers, better facilities to handle problems with the language."

Another good reason to participate is that Utah just missed obtaining a fourth U.S. House District in 2000. A final audit showed that if it had just 80 more people counted that year, Utah would have received the last-available House district that instead went to North Carolina.

Hansen said more than 900 Census workers are beginning now to check all addresses where people might live in Utah to ensure Census forms are delivered to them next year.

"We're having teams go out to every possible place where people live or could live, every house, apartment, trailer house, mountain cabin, sheep camp … particular bridge underpasses, abandoned houses where we known the homeless live," he said.

He said the workers are carrying small hand-held computers that geocode each residence, and they wear identity badges and carry cases identifying them as Census workers. Despite efforts to publicize that their work is confidential, he said at least one team has already been chased away from a house by a man wielding a gun.

Hansen adds that the long form of previous censuses has been eliminated, and the form next year will include only 10 questions and take about 10 minutes to answer.

Ten years ago, only 68 percent of Utahns responded initially to the Census without requiring follow-up visits. The Census this year hopes for at least a 78 percent initial response in Utah.

"If you're concerned about your tax dollars being misspent, you should cooperate with the Census. The more people we can get to do this the easy way, the less it is going to cost in time and resources to back and go back and go back," Hansen said.

E-MAIL: lee@desnews.com
 
DeseretNews.com
Originally published Tuesday, March 31, 2009
 
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