My Point of View by Ebenezer Howe

Alden resident Ebenezer Howe is chairman of the Freeborn County Republican Party. His views do not necessarily reflect the views of the local party members.

I was dismayed by the Albert Lea Tribune Editorial on Thursday, March 29, “Much at stake in the upcoming U.S. Census.” For an entity that derives its existence from the First Amendment, I was amazed at the stance of the paper. I would think that a very strong support position for the rule of law would be in order. The big question is, should a person not born in the United States be asked if they naturalized. The reasoning for not asking is that recipients

of the census form may not reply due to fear of their answer. And those not replying could jeopardize the accuracy of the count and Freeborn County may not get all its share of things given by the government and Minnesota may lose a congressional seat. If we are to maintain our Constitutional Republic we must have citizens who have allegiance to the United States. We do have a problem with illegal immigration and the total number is unknown. This question may shed light on the magnitude of the problem, and if we have a local illegal immigration problem, it needs to be rectified.

Answering the U.S. Census is required by law. While rare, fines can be imposed for failure to respond. According to Title 13. Section 221 (Census, Refusal or neglect to answer questions; false answers) of the United States Code, persons who fail or refuse to respond to the mail-back census form, or refuse to respond to a follow-up census taker, can be fined up to $100. Persons who knowingly provide false information to the census can be fined up to $500. The Census Bureau points out online that under Section 3571 of Title 18, the fine for refusing to answer a bureau survey can be as much as $5,000.

Before imposing a fine, the Census Bureau typically attempts to personally contact and interview persons who fail to respond to census questionnaires.

Persons concerned about the privacy of their answers should know that, under federal law, all employees and officials of the Census Bureau are prohibited from sharing a person’s personal information with anyone else, including welfare agencies, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Internal Revenue Service, courts, police and the military. Violation of this law carries penalties of $5,000 in fines and up to five years in prison. I know a fellow who, after training, lasted one day working for the Census Bureau in the 2000 census. He was doing the in-person follow-up, in a not so friendly part of Minneapolis, to addresses that had failed to respond to the census. He happened on a drug deal going down after being invited in to do the interview. The thugs said don’t worry, you can’t report us and if you do we still walk. He finished his day and then turned in his stuff. So, fear from completing the census is totally unfounded.

The 2020 census will be the 23rd and the number of questions has grown from the first, which just counted the population, to asking all sorts of other things. Between 1970 and 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau used two questionnaires. Most households received a short-form questionnaire asking a minimum number of questions. A sample of households received a long-form questionnaire that included additional questions about the household. The 2010 census had just one questionnaire consisting of 10 questions.

I hope the 2020 census questionnaire is no longer than 11 questions. I had to do the long form once. In Freeborn County, you could get that same information from the planning folks and Assessor’s Office — they ask the same questions as the census did.