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Latino activist wants raids halted for census
John Trasviņa wants the next president to appoint a Homeland Security chief who will halt immigration raids during the 2010 Census. Trasviņa, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, told an audience in Phoenix on Friday that an accurate count of Hispanics will result in a lot more Latino elected officials.
Capitol Media Services
The head of a major Latino rights group wants the next president to appoint a Homeland Security chief who will agree to halt immigration raids during the 2010 Census. But Gov. Janet Napolitano, who could be that appointee, is on record as opposing such a move.
John Trasviña told the Arizona Latino Research Enterprise Town Hall on Friday that getting an accurate count is critical to electing more Hispanics to office. And the president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund said to do that first requires educating the Latino community about the importance of the count.
"We cannot do that as well as we want to until we know the Department of Homeland Security is not going to be out there at the same time the enumerators are out there, knocking on doors, asking for people's names and who lives at that particular house," he said.
Trasviña said a proper count of Hispanics will affect how congressional and state legislative districts are drawn for the 2012 elections.
In Arizona, he said, counting all those who are not citizens could mean the difference between getting just one or two new seats in the U.S. House.
Trasviña said the chief immigration officer in charge in 1990 and again in 2000 agreed to "back off" during the count. But Russ Knocke, press aide to Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, said that idea is a nonstarter.
"As long as we are around, we won't halt or even think of letting up our enforcement operations," Knocke told Capitol Media Services.
Napolitano, when asked about the idea last year, said she sees no need to slow or halt raids.
The governor acknowledged it is important to get an accurate count of everyone here, legal or otherwise, with congressional representation and federal aid tied to those figures. But Napolitano said the question of raids versus a correct count is a "false dichotomy."
She said the Census Bureau can count heads and then augment those with some of the statistically based methods to go from "actual" count to "real" count. "You can't ever count everybody all the time, because people move around," she said.
Her stance could be more significant than her role as Arizona governor: An early supporter of Democrat Barack Obama, Napolitano has been mentioned as a possible Cabinet pick, including secretary of Homeland Security or attorney general.
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