Speech #1010080438

John G. Keane. Director of the Bureau of Census at the Commerce Department. recently testified before the House Subcommittee on Census and Population that the Bureau has not found an acceptable method of excluding undocumented immigrants from the apportionment counts. He explained that: Proposed methodssuch as including direct enumeration and estimationwould cause problems in carrying out the census and would likely introduce significant errors into the census that could affect the allocation of one or more Congressional seats. Because of these practical problems. and because the amendment is unconstitutional. both the Department of Commerce and the Department of Justice oppose this amendment. I would like to point out. Mr. President. that a noncitizens immigration status can be ascertained only through exceedingly detailed and intrusive questions which call for legal conclusions. and which cannot be verified without violating the confidentiality provisions of the Census Act. The results of a 1980 attempt by the Census Bureau to estimate the undocumented alien population are questionable because of the indirect statistical techniques which were used. Moreover. one critical piece of information used to derive the 1980 estimatesINS alien registration datais no longer collected or is collected on a voluntary basis. Finally.