WASHINGTON, DC – FWD.us President Todd Schulte issued the following statement today on the Commerce Department’s intent to add a citizenship question to the United States Census for the first time since 1950. The announcement comes just days before the March 31 deadline for the Census Bureau to provide Congress with the final wording of the census questionnaire:

“The Trump Administration’s decision to add a question regarding citizenship to the United States Census is wrong. This decision could lead to serious under-counting of the population particularly in areas populated by immigrant communities and communities of color. Under counting the population will jeopardize billions of dollars in federal funding for education, transportation, infrastructure, childhood and health care programs, to name a few. This question has been left off the general census forms precisely to avoid an inaccurate count for nearly seven decades and through Republican and Democratic presidential administrations from Eisenhower to Clinton, to Kennedy, to Reagan and Bush. This decision should be reversed.