Public comment is open until November 2, 2026.
Where to comment: REGULATIONS.GOV
A breakdown of the proposed changes: NACO
What I had to say:
The proposed changes to the decennial census are designed to deprive minority Americans of their equal rights and equal protections. These changes should not be implemented.
The proposed changes are presented at such a time and in such a way as to clearly indicate that the changes are designed to obscure the existence of minority citizens and residents; to expose such citizens and residents to scrutiny by federal agencies currently being weaponized, at taxpayer expense, against taxpayers; and to further interfere with the rights of minority citizens to vote, to access public services, and to exist safely in public.
Reliance on an illegal executive order, one which has been used across federal agencies as an excuse to deny the equality of all citizens and promote the privilege of white citizens only, as a justification for the census changes will accomplish nothing but launch another barrage of lawsuits against this criminal administration. Except, of course, that the data resulting from this skewed and discriminatory collection will be used to deny funding to programs intended to protect minority populations, long after the current administration is removed from power.
The Census Bureau’s proposed changes track with other changes made under the aforesaid illegal executive order designed to strip minority citizens of civil, legal, medical, and voting rights. In its own statement (Part II), the Bureau alleges: “Whether generally authorized or specifically required (as it has been at times in the past) by Congress, the collection of such data does not, by itself, advance the fundamental, Constitutional purpose of the decennial census, which is to conduct an enumeration to ascertain the population count for apportionment. See Carey v. Klutznick, 653 F.2d 732, 736 (2d Cir. 1981)”
However, long before the average reader would find this statement, they will see (Part I): “the Census Bureau is considering utilizing its enormously broad access to administrative records to determine an individual's legal status.”
So, in fact, the purpose of these proposed changes is laid bare: to support a criminal administration in its efforts to deport every brown person it can get its hands on, to feed data to law enforcement agencies and their contractors, to allow those agencies and contractors to manipulate or misinterpret such data as it has multiple times since January 2025 (see: fictitious claims of noncitizen voters enrolled in Nevada) – and, of course, to further terrorize minority residents. The terror is, apparently, the point.
It is not the duty of the Census Bureau to investigate anything. It is the duty of the Bureau to collect data in an objective manner that serves its Constitutional brief: “to conduct an enumeration to ascertain the population count for apportionment.” By which is meant, apportionment of elected Federal representatives. The Bureau’s job is to inform the federal government that a given county now has X number of residents.
But it is also important to know who those residents are, because federal, state, and local governments are actively targeting certain populations in ways that national laws have been passed to prevent. SCOTUS may have gutted the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, but the citizens those acts are meant to protect still exist. They still have rights. They should not be hidden from the nation’s legal records as if they do not, or as if there is no difference between a minority resident’s experience of existence in the USA and a white resident’s experience.
Demographic data collected by the Bureau has been used for more than a century to ensure that minority populations are not denied funding, protection, or representation allocated to them. The current administration and its nationwide cohort of rights deniers would like to use corrupted Census data to support gerrymandering that is actively interfering with the rights of minority voters across the former Confederacy. The discrimination is, quite obviously, the point.
The Bureau’s proposal to squeeze 21 categories of residence into 8 seems intended to deprive states with higher populations of post-incarceration or unhoused people, college students and transient workers, long-term treatment center or retirement home residents, or other group homes, from accurate apportionment and thus from access to federal funding as well as representation.
NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION was the rallying cry of the North American colonists when they, however fractiously, united to throw off the yoke of the British government.
The proposed changes to the decennial census boil down to one thing: the desire of the current administration to define Americans according to its own racist ideology, instead of accepting that Americans are a diverse body of humanity, each individual member of which is guaranteed equal rights and protection under the law. These changes should not be implemented.
A final note to anyone who’s read this and is considering making a comment: COMMENTS MATTER. You’re welcome to adapt mine if you don’t want to write your own 800-word screed. A comment of a single sentence (feel free to copy my first sentence!) counts just as much as a long one.
As of today, the platform has received over 100,000 comments. As a reminder, the USA contains 349 million people. We should at least be able to get to 349,000 comments, right?