Speech #960180379

Mr. President. the debate over illegal aliens has generally centered around the question of whether the massive influx of illegals contributes to unemployment. While depriving jobs to American citizens and legal residents is a matter that should be of paramount importance. there is another aspect of the illegal alien problem which will have a more profound and longrange impact upon the United States. The U.S. Census Bureau is preparing to conduct the 1980 census and from all indications it will be the most thorough count of people in the United States ever undertaken. As part of this effort to count everyone. the Census Bureau intends to make a special effort to count illegal aliens. The Bureau has undertaken substantial advertising and public relations campaigns to encourage illegal aliens to cooperate on the 1980 census. Illegal aliens are. in effect. being promised immunity from our immigration laws and are being coached on the benefits that will accrue to their communities in the form of Federal funds if they come forward to be counted. In cooperation with this effort. the Immigration and Naturalization Service has suspended searches of residential neighborhoods with known concentrations of illegal aliens so that they will not be "scared off" when the census takers arrive. Government moneys have been spent for the placement of newspaper ads and TV spots directed toward educating illegal aliens on the 1980 census and the importance of their response to it. The Census Bureau is correct in its effort to count illegal aliens. However. it is wrong to include them in the general census without distinguishing how many are illegal aliens. To do so will result in congressional seats being reapportioned on the basis of large concentrations of illegal aliens. Some States will gain Representatives they would not otherwise have gained and other States will lose Representatives on the same basis. To allow this to happen would be a violation of the constitutional concept of "one personone vote" and would distort the political influence of certain States. Inflated census figures also will affect the distribution of Federal funds among the States. More than 100 Federal programs depend. at least partially. on the size of some population group to determine distribution ratios. I believe that directing scarce Federal funds to areas with high concentrations of illegal aliens is not in the best interest of our own disadvantaged who reside in other localities. Because of my deep concern about this matter. I had the Library of Congress do a series of computations projecting congressional apportionment figures. given various assumptions about illegal aliens. I supplied the assumptions about the numbers and distribution of illegal aliens. and the Library of Congress only did the necessary computations using existing census figures. Admittedly. the final figures could vary since we do not have definite information on the numbers or distribution of illegal aliens in the United States. These figures contain three types of projections: