Citizenship is great. It defines our place officially; it offers access to benefits of being born in our country or having pledged allegiance to our country. Citizenship describes a standard we can apply to many things.
What citizen is not - what it's being twisted into, is the definition of a human being.
Since the birth of our country the mandated census has provided the means from which to determine representation = not of our citizenry exclusively, but of all those in the country. Legal and illegal.
Why would we represent those that are not citizens in our lawmaking process you ask?
I answer: for lots of reasons. First, Country is an artificial construct. If you put two people on the opposite sides of a border and shoot them both, the loss is unfathomable on either side of the border. Their contribution to the world around them easily could be the same. Their basic human rights that we consider fundamental - that we are all created equal does not change.
And yet, the census is being brought before the supreme court by the Trump administration to change that - to change the definition of all men being created equal and introduce into law the idea that some are better than others.
First, there is an attempt by the administration to cut off the Census because traditionally it takes time to get good report of those who are not on the official radar. The Republican party wants to keep them from being counted and is using the excuse that they need to deliver a report in December.
The real reason for that is they intend to challenge how the electoral college and the house of representatives is distributed fundamentally to enable a Trump win and ensure Republican dominance in populations where they aren’t the majority. If they remove the immigrants from the population count, then more representation is apportioned to areas with fewer immigrants - it takes power away from California, New York and other centers of population.
There are a myriad of reasons it is important to stop this and highlights the importance of balanced constitutional interpretation - by not giving representation to centers of population, we pull back the ability to provide food, aid, education, funding for public transportation, allocation of health resources, effect environmental and housing regulation, effect minimum pay, get funding for mail service, infrastructure... and on and on and on.
It's just one more attempt to put more power in the hands of old, white heterosexual men. How? Well, our migrant populations live in cities. by removing them from the count, rural areas get additional representation, having small or nonexistent migrant populations and much smaller minority populations. So, in areas that are largely white (over 70% of the country) they get more power and in areas that have higher, more mixed populations, where laws for sexual orientation and gender equality are fairer, they get less.
That translates into humans being treated as lesser, based on the idea that certain people, who are part of our population and are mandated by the constitution to be counted suddenly are not.
And it's wrong. It denies them representation. It denies the community resources. It means more populated areas get back less of the tax they pay in.
It also provides an opportunity to change the distribution of the electoral college before the results of the 2020 election are finalized, especially if an abundance of legal challenges are put up delaying the results. It's why the Republican party deployed an army of 6000 lawyers to oppose election law and set the stage for extended legal battles.
It's a political power grab and a chess move, meant to entrap a majority under minority rule. It's a violation of "All men are created equal". It's wrong and it's evil.
It makes your vote ever more important. Please vote.
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