Trump seeks to exclude undocumented immigrants from population census 1:36
(CNN) - The United States Census Bureau announced Monday night that the field data collection will end a full month earlier than originally planned.
This is a sign that the Trump government has abandoned its plan to expand the window to count the nation's population, which previously said it should be longer due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Now for households to be counted they must complete the survey by September 30, rather than October 31, as announced by the Census Bureau when adjusting plans due to the virus. The office will also end its labor-intensive efforts to knock on the doors of homes that did not complete the survey online, on paper, or by phone.
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The change is part of an effort to "expedite the completion of data collection and distribution of counts" before the year-end deadline, Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham said in a statement.
"The new Census Bureau plan reflects our continued commitment to complete a count, provide accurate distribution data, and protect the health and safety of the public and our workforce," he said.
But the truncated timeline is likely to give way to further scrutiny of the accuracy of that entity's population count in the United States, which has already been interrupted by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
The pandemic came just as a massive once-a-decade effort to count the population of the United States was launched and scrambled the agency's plans, which suspended field operations for a time. Although fieldwork has resumed in some areas, it is expected to be underway across the country later this month.
The census, which occurs every 10 years, determines how many representatives each state gets in Congress and how billions of dollars in federal funds are spent. Schools, roads, and other important things communities will get, or lose, funds in the next 10 years, depending on this official population count.
And while this year's census has relied more on gathering responses by phone, email, or online, the operation will still need a solid field operation in the coming weeks to reach minority communities as well as students on college campuses, seniors in assisted living facilities and homeless people.
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These groups are not only at high risk of infection, but are also among those most in need of in-person assistance. With many locked-in seniors and college students living at home, an accurate count can be increasingly difficult in a tighter time frame.
Still, Dillingham said Monday night that the office is "committed to a complete and accurate 2020 census."
“Building on our innovative and successful response option on the Internet, the dedicated women and men of the Census Bureau, including our temporary workforce that will be deployed to communities across the country in the coming weeks, will work diligently to achieve an accurate count, "he said.
Last week, Dillingham declined to say whether the office needed additional time to complete the 2020 census while testifying before the House Oversight Committee.
The Trump administration this spring asked Congress to extend completion deadlines by four months, but several House Democrats said they are concerned that the administration has withdrawn from that request.
The conversation about the term extension "was not on my level," Dillingham testified. She said her focus is moving "as fast as possible and to get a complete and accurate count as soon as possible."
But the possibility of having less time to count the population in question advocates minority groups that have historically been underestimated in the census.
"This new deadline allows Trump to trick hard-to-reach communities of color with the resources necessary for everything from health care and education to housing and transportation for the next 10 years," said Asian Americans Advancing Justice, one of the groups. who successfully sued the administration's plan to ask a census citizenship question.
The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights under the law said it condemned the plan to shorten collection "in unequivocal terms" because it could lead to "the lack of millions in black and immigrant communities."
- CNN's Tara Subramaniam, Vivian Salama, Holmes Lybrand and Catherine E. Shoichet contributed to this report.
2020 census