here’s any way to reassure them to answer this government form, but how do you make estimates there? Because I know it’s been widely publicized that we’ve got, like, 11 million illegals or something like that. MR. WEINBERG:
Well, okay. We don’t estimate the number of illegal immigrants in this country. What we do is try to count everybody. Now, you’re right, some illegal immigrants worry that any contract – contact with the government might result in some negative results for themselves, so we have to go to as great a lengths as we can to reassure them. Now, the way we do that is several ways: We target advertisements to them and focus on the privacy and confidentiality message. We hire enumerators from their community, so the people who come to their door are people they recognize. And we work with community leaders in their communities to get the word out. There might be a pastor in the local church who might emphasize how important it is to answer the Census. It might be somebody who runs the local health center who might be willing to put up signs in their health clinic about how important it is to answer the Census. We go to – we target extra funds to partnerships programs for those people who might worry about it.
When – we try to create forms in their language, which might help as well. And I’m – just for example, I’ll give you an interesting example. The Secretary of Commerce, which is Secretary Locke, is from Chinese ancestry. And we showed him the Chinese form and he said, “This is in simplified Chinese. Most of the Chinese in this country use traditional Chinese.” And we said, “Yes, that’s true, but most of the people of Chinese ancestry in the country already speak English. They don’t need this form. This form is for the recent Chinese immigrant who may have come over in a container and is on the – not – we want them to understand this form.” So we do – it’s not easy. I’m not trying to say it’s easy, but we sort of really make an effort to reach all of them. QUESTION:
One last question: Some anti-immigrant groups, mostly, argue that the opposite kind of result can happen in that lots of illegals report that they live here in the United States, and thereby certain districts in the United States would actually qualify for more representation in Congress simply because they have huge numbers of illegals. Is that political repercussion? MR. WEINBERG:
Well, the Constitution and all the interpretations we’ve gotten from the courts over the years says it’s the resident population, not citizen and non-citizen, it’s resident population. And if they live here, they’re residents, and that’s what should – those are the – everybody should be counted who lives here, not legal or illegal. The Congress, I suppose, could try to change the law if they really wanted to, and then that would have to be adjudicated through the courts, but the courts have upheld the current interpretation for centuries.QUESTION:
I’m Emmanuelle Richard with France 2 TV network, and my colleague is also a news producer. They tried to call to – so that he could follow an agent in the case when you have physical people going door to door, and we are told it’s not possible.MR. WEINBERG:
Is it not possible because we’re foreign media and you only have that much resources and you let only national media, or – MR. WEINBERG:
Not at all. Don’t let any media – not any U.S. media at all.QUESTION:
Oh, okay.MR. WEINBERG:
Because it’s part of this protecting the privacy and confidentiality of the data. If you interview – if you had a picture of somebody filling out their form, basically, you are involved in the data collection process. And we are required by law to keep that private and confidential.QUESTION:
Now, you can, I’m sure, work with our information office to get a simulated interview to show what it would look like if it were real, but you can’t follow a real interviewer. They are instructed to – if the media approach, they have to stop work.QUESTION:
You can’t follow an agent? They can go and then you stop filming, because it’s private, after that?MR. 