I was in agreement with the article until I read this line; as others have pointed out – this is complete nonsense. There are several points as to why it is completely outrageous for the census to include illegals:

1. These people are here ILLEGALLY. Just by being in this country they are violating several laws. They should not be here in the first place, why should they be counted for any reason other than to determine how many there are?

2. Your assertion that states that harbor illegals should receive more federal resources and representation is completely idiotic and lacks even a pretense of an attempt at logic. Why should states that create safe havens for illegals (by creating “safe cities”, giving them various benefits, etc) receive federal resources to support them? Maybe if these states were forced to provide for the illegals themselves they would not be quite so eager to welcome them with open arms.

3. Then there’s the blatant stupidity of rewarding those who break the law (and most of whom don’t pay taxes) with federal resources and representation. Not being citizens (or even legal residents) they cannot vote – or at least should not be able to. (I am not naive and know that Democrats are so moving at times that illegals and even dead people turn out to vote for them.) When you reward an action, you encourage that action.

4. As others have pointed out, the census is not just about numbers. Yes, one of its functions is to get an idea of how many people there are in the country, what the demographics are, how many are citizens or just residents, etc. But that not all these numbers are used for, they also determine how many reps a state has and how the districts are divided. I have no problem with counting illegals (we need to know how many there are so that we know how big the problem is), but they should be labeled as such in the census and their numbers should not be included in the determination of state reps, etc.

Many people make emotional appeals when participating in the illegal immigration debate but would never run their own household in the same way they propose we run our country’s immigration policy. Assume for the moment that we are talking about a typical American family:
a. You have the adults who are the heads of the household who make the money, laws, and decision regarding the household. They are the adult citizens who engage in economic activity, voting, legislating, campaigning, lobbing, grassroots organization, and everything else that makes our society/government function.
b.There are the children of the adults who have almost no say in the decisions of the adults although the decisions of the adults almost always take the needs and sometimes their wants into consideration when making decisions. These are the children of citizens who are citizens themselves; they have little economic power and no political voice but nonetheless their needs influence public and private spending and policy.
c. Then there are the invited guests. Their residency maybe short-term and temporary like cousin Jack whose wife kicked him out of the house for a week after he came home drunk five nights in a row or long-term and permanent like the in-laws who are staying indefinitely. They may help pay the rent/mortgage, help out around the house, help babysit the kids, etc; but they do not have a say in the decision/rule making of the household. They are expected to obey the rules of the house and if they violate them too many times they will be asked to leave. If they have lived in the household for many years, they may “petition” to become members of the family and then participate in the decisions of the family. It is obvious that this refers to the legal immigrants who waited for an invitation and who usually appreciate being allowed into the US; they contribute to the US economy – but have no political voice.
d. Lastly, you have the uninvited “guests”. Imagine a homeless guy forcing his way into your house and then hiding out in the basement. He raids your fridge when hungry and makes use of all the amenities your house has to offer. When confronted, he gives a sob story of how hard his life was before and accuses you of discrimination and declares his right to stay. He does do odd jobs around the house, but these are jobs you could have gotten someone else to do (for a slightly higher cost) or gotten your kids to do. We would not put up with a person like this in our house, but the Democrats are trying to have us put up with millions like this in our country.

I would like to state for the record that I am not anti-immigration, I myself immigrated LEGALLY to this country 20 years ago to escape religious persecution in the Soviet Union. I can appreciate that people want a better life for themselves and their children and that they believe the US is the best place to make this happen; but the fact remains that breaking the laws of the receiving country to get in should not get you advantages over others in line to get in. I am very much in touch with the Slavic immigrant community in my area and could tell you many heart-breaking stories of people who are trying to get their families to join them here in the US and of the hard lives their families endure in the former Soviet republics; but they are following the law in trying to get their loved ones here – why should someone who came here illegally jump to the front of the line?

How about the despicable incident which occurred at Richmond, California H.S. recently? I’m curious as to the 10 or so witnesses/ participants who’d abused/ twisted the 14th Amendment to enjoy their ‘citizenship’?

Hey, as long as ‘CASA’, ‘Identity Inc’, La Raza, PUEBLO, the 2 LATINO, not AMERICAN activist groups you’d mentioned in your article continue receiving federal dollars and shovel empathy toward the useful idiots i.e. Democrat voting base, liberal politicians..

Ahh, I digress.

Yes, the liberal and/or Democratic led states house illegals moreso than Republicans. You PURPOSELY left out another state in the West – Colorado.

Colorado, which was a Republican led state up until ~5 years ago ‘boasts’ of 500,000 illegals in their 4 million population. That’s 1 in 8 are illegal. Go check out the larger cities: West Denver, Aurora, Pueblo, Thornton, Longmont, Westminster, etc., and see how the illegal population has ‘contributed its share of destroying the public education system, gang activity, teen pregnancy, violence and STEALING of state programs..

Oklahoma has put a strong arm on illegals in their state and its paying dividends..

Again, it’s a FELONY if entering our country illegally. Whether you’re working or not, you are a CRIMINAL working in our sadly, porous borders.

Unemployment for U.S. Citizens are extreme and you were complaining of not enough H1-B Visas issued. Now, it’s taking ILLEGALS out of American jobs, too?

Lastly, your ‘The senators want to change that, even if it means shortchanging states with large immigrant populations’ comment – A majority of the public WANT this and the majority of Senators are listening due to the ILLEGAL ALIENS (don’t try to ‘sell’ it as immigrant, Ruben) contributing greatly to inundating, breaking every facet of the American system.

Here’s where you went completely off the rails, R.N.

The census is a Constitutionally-mandated, government function and as such, because it determines the composition of Congress in a fundamental way, is very much about law and order.

And inasmuch as federal law influences (lately: controls) economics it is also very much about that as well. To pretend not to see this is an unreasonable, even irrational position. If the census were solely about ‘numbers’, there wouldn’t be any point to it and there certainly wouldn’t be any justification for spending Treasury monies on it.

So – just because Latino activists are whining – you want to suspend the law. Sorry, I don’t think you’ll get many people to climb on that bus. Just as you won’t get reasonable people to buy into the notion that the immigration debate is only about ‘numbers’. That debate is about ILLEGAL immigration and, as such, about CRIMINAL activity – very much an issue of law and order. Your proposition that we ignore law in order to benefit La Raza is by definition true, fundamental racism.

“It is not immigrants that the majority has a problem with. It is illegal immigrants.”

30 million illegals? That’s quite a bit of immigrants. Not an accurate estimate? Count them.

And how many will tell the census they are illegals?