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Julie Menin

New York City Director of the Census


April 29, 2019
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You were at the U.S. Supreme Court last week to see oral arguments in the case
concerning the citizenship question. What are the chances of preventing that
from being included in the upcoming census?

We believe very strongly that the law and facts of the case are on our side. With that
said, obviously, the conservative justices on the Supreme Court had questions about
some aspects of the case so we'll see where we are in the end. We believe that the
question is unlawful and that it is a clear violation of the Administrative Procedures Act.
There was absolutely no basis whatsoever for (U.S. Commerce Secretary) Secretary
Ross, to have included the question.

Besides this case, what else is going on in your job overseeing New York City’s
census outreach?

I have two jobs. One is obviously as the census director. The second is as executive
assistant corporation counsel at the law department. It's incredibly important that we
make sure that people understand what's at stake with regard to the census.

First, there is the funding piece. It's almost $800 billion a year of federal funds that the
federal government allocates to cities and states across the country, for everything from
public education, public housing, Medicaid, senior centers. Dozens and dozens and
dozens of programs depend on an accurate census count.

Then of course, there's the political representation piece – which is a real dire
consequence – because the Trump administration clearly added this question to try to
intimidate immigrant communities and communities of color throughout our city. We
want to mobilize all New Yorkers behind the census and explain what is at stake.

The best way to resist Trump is to take the five minutes and fill out the census. That is
the only way that we are going to ensure that communities get their fair share of funding
political representation and the political representation that they deserve and that is
rightfully there.

The message that we really want to make sure that New Yorkers are hearing loud and
clear is that in 2010, the city had a 61.9% self response rate. So during the eight weeks
of the census – when people self respond as opposed to when someone comes and
knocks on your door – the city's response rate was 61.9%. The borough of Brooklyn had
an average response rate of 54% – one of the lowest in the country. The national
average is 76%.
So all of this funding was left on the table, we cannot have that situation repeat itself.
And what the Trump administration is trying to do by inserting the citizenship question is
to defund progressive cities like New York, and move that funding to “Red States” that
don't have large immigrant populations. This is really an insidious ploy to defund New
York out of its fair share, and also to disenfranchise communities out of their fair political
representation.

How are the city, the state and nonprofits working together on this?

The state allocated $20 million to the census. The city is allocating $22 million. Coupled
with $4 million from fiscal year 2019 that is rolling over there is a total of $26 million for
census. We plan on disseminating grants to community organizations all across the city,
because it is really those community organizations that are the trusted voice in their
community. That’s going to be incredibly important as we encourage everyone be
counted and that the people understand what's at stake in terms of filling out the
census.

Certainly, depending on if the citizenship question is on or off, we have to do extensive


outreach in immigrant communities all across the city, and also really focus on language
access. That's going to be a very important part of this as well. So we plan on really
creating a comprehensive community outreach plan and a media plan as well. That’s
going to be everything from TV ads, radio ads, newspapers, digital to make sure that
we're spreading the word all throughout. The bottom line is, we want to make sure that
every New Yorkers counted. We're going to be making an announcement specifically
about nonprofits so I'm going to save any comment on that.

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