Counting on Latinos

If Census Bureau estimates are accurate, there are about 47 million Latinos in the United States, accounting for about 15 percent of the total U.S. population.

And, as comedian George Lopez explains, "those are just the ones who answer the knock at the door."

Here's something that is no joke. The 2010 census is still six months away, but already the national count is stirring a lot of controversy in the Latino community. It's also exposing a contradiction on the part of America's largest minority.

Some Latino activists are foolishly urging that Latinos boycott the census as a way of protesting White House foot-dragging on immigration reform and what they consider the Obama administration's heavy-handed enforcement measures. All the news out of the administration these days is about how it is improving enforcement -- nothing about a specific plan to achieve comprehensive reform.

But being disappointed is no excuse for being self-destructive. Boycotting the census is a horrible idea that would only further disenfranchise the Latino community by, among other things, shortchanging it in the redistricting process that will take place in state legislatures after the survey.

Other activists have also been trying to use the census as a ploy to stop or at least temporarily stall immigration raids. For the last several months, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund and others have been quietly suggesting that the Commerce Department -- the government agency responsible for administering the national survey -- ask the Homeland Security Department to halt the workplace raids so as to defuse fear in the immigrant community and increase participation.

The Commerce Department said recently that it would not follow its own precedent but would instead maintain a hands-off approach to the immigration issue. This is another wake-up call for Latino immigrant activists who naively assumed that the Obama administration was going to be a natural ally.

Here's the contradiction: By condemning the raids as something that could dampen census participation, the activists implicitly claim that getting an accurate count matters a great deal to them and to the Latino community as a whole. Obviously, some of these Latino advocates don't value the process nearly as much as they pretend to.

Or maybe they just put a higher value on getting their way at all costs. This is a bad strategy that makes those who employ it look selfish and petty. People like that are often just ignored. And that doesn't get the activists any closer to the respect they crave.

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