Wednesday 1 May 2019

If the Census Avoids Counting Illegals?

In general, two states (California and Texas) will likely (based on various statistical displays) will lose two representatives and districts.  Florida, New York, Illinois, and New Jersey stand to lose one district/representative.  Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona would be on the list but those have some gains in number population, and might survive this.

The real pain here?  Redrawing the districts, and the amount of suffering that the Supreme Court has to go through over the next decade.

In the case of Texas, with enough GOP in the state house....the redrawing would eliminate two Democratic districts (my suspicion).  In the case of California, they'd work to eliminate two GOP districts. 

The gainers?  There are differing views on this.  Most believe that the illegals will be counted, and that California, Texas, Virginia, Florida, Colorado, Arizona, and Oregon will be the gainers.  If you subtract out the illegals....zero gain for California, Florida and Texas (perhaps one less).  But all of this assumes some numbers in the California population (if these people haven't packed up and left).

This idea by Senator Jones of Alabama to go ahead and count illegals in Alabama?  Well, based on a count in 2014, the state has at best....around 65,000 illegals.  Some will dispute that number and suggest it's more (closer to 100,000) and others will say down to around 30,000.  That's the problem with this whole game of counting.

And the international students in various Alabama colleges?  Well, no one has brought that up.  Most universities in the state will not advertise their number or publicly announce the trend.  My humble guess is that more than 15,000 foreign students exist in the state.  Those kids are on a visa, and probably should be counted.