To Give You a Size of the Immense and Growing Size of Illegal Immigration

[Emily Lake]

So you can make the claim that illegal immigrants increase the amount of congressional seats for the sanctuary states, but reality says otherwise.

It didn't increase the amount of seats, but it prevented them from shrinking seats when they ought to have.

It seems there is a lot of moving parts for this alleged conspiracy theory. And very little payoff relatively speaking.

Well, if you want to claim that the US census bureau is involved in a grand conspiracy of some sort, go right ahead my pal. Just don't put those words into my mouth.

 

[Shadowy Man]

So you can make the claim that illegal immigrants increase the amount of congressional seats for the sanctuary states, but reality says otherwise.

It didn't increase the amount of seats, but it prevented them from shrinking seats when they ought to have.

So, you are modifying the claim that California is letting in illegal immigrants in order to be counted in the census to prevent a loss (rather than provide a gain) in Congressional representation? Is that right?

Is just another hypothesis, or is there hard data that the census included the counting of undocumented when apportioning Congressional representation?

 

[jonatha]

So you can make the claim that illegal immigrants increase the amount of congressional seats for the sanctuary states, but reality says otherwise.

It didn't increase the amount of seats, but it prevented them from shrinking seats when they ought to have.

So, you are modifying the claim that California is letting in illegal immigrants in order to be counted in the census to prevent a loss (rather than provide a gain) in Congressional representation? Is that right?

Is just another hypothesis, or is there hard data that the census included the counting of undocumented when apportioning Congressional representation?

Well, there's this:

"all people (citizens and noncitizens) with a usual residence in the United States are included in the resident population for the census"

 

[Shadowy Man]

So you can make the claim that illegal immigrants increase the amount of congressional seats for the sanctuary states, but reality says otherwise.

It didn't increase the amount of seats, but it prevented them from shrinking seats when they ought to have.

So, you are modifying the claim that California is letting in illegal immigrants in order to be counted in the census to prevent a loss (rather than provide a gain) in Congressional representation? Is that right?

Is just another hypothesis, or is there hard data that the census included the counting of undocumented when apportioning Congressional representation?

Well, there's this:

"all people (citizens and noncitizens) with a usual residence in the United States are included in the resident population for the census"

There are plenty of legal noncitizens. This doesn’t speak to my question. Emily specifically stated that the counting of undocumented people impacted the Congressional apportionment of representation for California. There must be evidence of this for her to state it as true, yes? Or is it a hypothetical like the claim to which i originally responded?

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

So you can make the claim that illegal immigrants increase the amount of congressional seats for the sanctuary states, but reality says otherwise.

It didn't increase the amount of seats, but it prevented them from shrinking seats when they ought to have.

So, you are modifying the claim that California is letting in illegal immigrants in order to be counted in the census to prevent a loss (rather than provide a gain) in Congressional representation? Is that right?

Is just another hypothesis, or is there hard data that the census included the counting of undocumented when apportioning Congressional representation?

Well, there's this:

"all people (citizens and noncitizens) with a usual residence in the United States are included in the resident population for the census"

There are plenty of legal noncitizens. This doesn’t speak to my question. Emily specifically stated that the counting of undocumented people impacted the Congressional apportionment of representation for California. There must be evidence of this for her to state it as true, yes? Or is it a hypothetical like the claim to which i originally responded?

One of the premises is very likely that at least to some extent there is some effect. As noted all residents are included--this means even children are included, all foreigners legal or not, and all felons--notably people who cannot vote like children, felons, and non-citizens. On the flip side, there are some immigrants, too, especially in 2020 who were afraid to be counted and so maybe hid from the census as much as possible. You'd imagine that this was more common among people who were not here legally. That said, the numbers are large enough that I am writing it's there to some extent.

That doesn't make any kind of conspiracy about it valid....like with counts of people, counts of people in each state, or motivations of other people. It also doesn't excuse morphing conspiracy theories that go from one wackadoo claim to the next...

Aside from assumptions and finger-pointing in shifting conspiracy theories there is also some weird inconsistency with other claims being made simultaneously. I mean, for example, Gov Abbott was sending immigrants to other states including California. They're so concerned about apportionment that they're sending them off to the place they say they are going to go anyway because the Democrats want them there. But also Democrats don't want them there because they are such a huge burden.

 

[jonatha]

So you can make the claim that illegal immigrants increase the amount of congressional seats for the sanctuary states, but reality says otherwise.

It didn't increase the amount of seats, but it prevented them from shrinking seats when they ought to have.

So, you are modifying the claim that California is letting in illegal immigrants in order to be counted in the census to prevent a loss (rather than provide a gain) in Congressional representation? Is that right?

Is just another hypothesis, or is there hard data that the census included the counting of undocumented when apportioning Congressional representation?

Well, there's this:

"all people (citizens and noncitizens) with a usual residence in the United States are included in the resident population for the census"

There are plenty of legal noncitizens. This doesn’t speak to my question. Emily specifically stated that the counting of undocumented people impacted the Congressional apportionment of representation for California. There must be evidence of this for her to state it as true, yes? Or is it a hypothetical like the claim to which i originally responded?

It does speak to your question. A later FAQ on that page makes it clear that apportionment is based on the resident population.

Now a google search of "number of undocumented immigrants in California" and "number of undocumented immigrants in Texas" and "how many people per representative" suggests that California can have expected to receive about half a vote in the house more vis a vis Texas if all the estimated undocumented immigrant population in both states were actually included in the census...

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

So you can make the claim that illegal immigrants increase the amount of congressional seats for the sanctuary states, but reality says otherwise.

It didn't increase the amount of seats, but it prevented them from shrinking seats when they ought to have.

So, you are modifying the claim that California is letting in illegal immigrants in order to be counted in the census to prevent a loss (rather than provide a gain) in Congressional representation? Is that right?

Is just another hypothesis, or is there hard data that the census included the counting of undocumented when apportioning Congressional representation?

Well, there's this:

"all people (citizens and noncitizens) with a usual residence in the United States are included in the resident population for the census"

There are plenty of legal noncitizens. This doesn’t speak to my question. Emily specifically stated that the counting of undocumented people impacted the Congressional apportionment of representation for California. There must be evidence of this for her to state it as true, yes? Or is it a hypothetical like the claim to which i originally responded?

It does speak to your question. A later FAQ on that page makes it clear that apportionment is based on the resident population.

Now a google search of "number of undocumented immigrants in California" and "number of undocumented immigrants in Texas" and "how many people per representative" suggests that California can have expected to receive about half a vote in the house more vis a vis Texas if all the estimated undocumented immigrant population in both states were actually included in the census...

May I ask "half a vote more" than what? I'm just wondering what the starting point is. As per previous posts, all residents are attempted to be included in the census like children, legal immigrants, felons, etc... is the delta being considered relative to that? Also, do we have realistic estimates of how much the scares over the census effected illegally residing immigrants (and legal immigrants) from participating? I'm not trying to debate, I just think there are empirical questions here.

 

[Shadowy Man]

So you can make the claim that illegal immigrants increase the amount of congressional seats for the sanctuary states, but reality says otherwise.

It didn't increase the amount of seats, but it prevented them from shrinking seats when they ought to have.

So, you are modifying the claim that California is letting in illegal immigrants in order to be counted in the census to prevent a loss (rather than provide a gain) in Congressional representation? Is that right?

Is just another hypothesis, or is there hard data that the census included the counting of undocumented when apportioning Congressional representation?

Well, there's this:

"all people (citizens and noncitizens) with a usual residence in the United States are included in the resident population for the census"

There are plenty of legal noncitizens. This doesn’t speak to my question. Emily specifically stated that the counting of undocumented people impacted the Congressional apportionment of representation for California. There must be evidence of this for her to state it as true, yes? Or is it a hypothetical like the claim to which i originally responded?

It does speak to your question. A later FAQ on that page makes it clear that apportionment is based on the resident population.

Now a google search of "number of undocumented immigrants in California" and "number of undocumented immigrants in Texas" and "how many people per representative" suggests that California can have expected to receive about half a vote in the house more vis a vis Texas if all the estimated undocumented immigrant population in both states were actually included in the census...

May I ask "half a vote more" than what? I'm just wondering what the starting point is. As per previous posts, all residents are attempted to be included in the census like children, legal immigrants, felons, etc... is the delta being considered relative to that? Also, do we have realistic estimates of how much the scares over the census effected illegally residing immigrants (and legal immigrants) from participating? I'm not trying to debate, I just think there are empirical questions here.

Presumably half a vote more than had they not counted the undocumented.

As I pointed out earlier, though, Texas has increased its proportion substantially in the past thirty years while California has remained constant. So if anyone has benefited from counting the undocumented there is evidence that it would be a red Texas not a blue sanctuary state like California.

I currently see no evidence to support the contention that Democrats want an “open border” to increase their blue state representation in Congress.

Sounds like bunk to me.

 

[jonatha]

May I ask "half a vote more" than what?

California has 300K more undocumented immigrants than Texas.

One representative equals 700K people.

Therefore California's "advantage" over Texas in undocumented immigrants gives California half a representative more vis a vis Texas than would have been the case if undocumented immigrants weren't there (or weren't counted).

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

May I ask "half a vote more" than what?

California has 300K more undocumented immigrants than Texas.

One representative equals 700K people.

Therefore California's "advantage" over Texas in undocumented immigrants gives California half a representative more vis a vis Texas than would have been the case if undocumented immigrants weren't there (or weren't counted).

I may not have access to the latest statistics. A quick google shows California general pop ~25% more than Texas. 39M vs 31M. Some old stats have a similar delta between illegal immigrants in California vs Texas. One would expect that. I would expect that because they are more protected in CA that they would be more open to revealing themselves in a census whereas Texas businesses and farms would be more prone to hiding traces of their illegal labor. In any case I saw 2021 estimates that had 1.9M vs 1.6M:

What we know about unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S.

The unauthorized immigrant population in the U.S. grew to 11 million in 2022, but remained below the peak of 12.2 million in 2007.

www.pewresearch.org

That is a proportional difference as expected from general population. To check quickly multiply by 20 and you get 32M vs 38M, a hop skip and jump away from 31M vs 39M...probably a rounding thing.

This seems very tricky of California to get the same proportion of illegals as Texas. What's even more insidious is that they're tricking Gov Abbot to fly even more immigrants off to LA?

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/14/abbott-sends-migrants-to-los-angeles-00102076

 

[TV and credit cards]

Kids as young as 14 were found working at a Tennessee factory that makes lawn mower parts

Immigrant children as young as 14 were found working amid heavy equipment at a Tennessee firm that makes parts for lawn mowers sold by John Deere and others.

www.yahoo.com

The company, Tuff Torq, was fined nearly $300,000 for hiring 10 children. As part of a consent agreement with the federal government, the company is also required to set aside $1.5 million to help the children who were illegally employed.

That's cool. The kids get a little bank. Probably doled out on a monthly basis. Hopefully instead of being exploited by the moneygrubbers, this will allow them to go to school in clean clothes and with full bellies.

 

[Emily Lake]

So you can make the claim that illegal immigrants increase the amount of congressional seats for the sanctuary states, but reality says otherwise.

It didn't increase the amount of seats, but it prevented them from shrinking seats when they ought to have.

So, you are modifying the claim that California is letting in illegal immigrants in order to be counted in the census to prevent a loss (rather than provide a gain) in Congressional representation? Is that right?

Is just another hypothesis, or is there hard data that the census included the counting of undocumented when apportioning Congressional representation?

Given that I did not make that claim, your post is entirely irrelevant.

 

[Emily Lake]

So you can make the claim that illegal immigrants increase the amount of congressional seats for the sanctuary states, but reality says otherwise.

It didn't increase the amount of seats, but it prevented them from shrinking seats when they ought to have.

So, you are modifying the claim that California is letting in illegal immigrants in order to be counted in the census to prevent a loss (rather than provide a gain) in Congressional representation? Is that right?

Is just another hypothesis, or is there hard data that the census included the counting of undocumented when apportioning Congressional representation?

Well, there's this:

"all people (citizens and noncitizens) with a usual residence in the United States are included in the resident population for the census"

There are plenty of legal noncitizens. This doesn’t speak to my question. Emily specifically stated that the counting of undocumented people impacted the Congressional apportionment of representation for California. There must be evidence of this for her to state it as true, yes? Or is it a hypothetical like the claim to which i originally responded?

I did not specifically state that.

 

[Shadowy Man]

So you can make the claim that illegal immigrants increase the amount of congressional seats for the sanctuary states, but reality says otherwise.

It didn't increase the amount of seats, but it prevented them from shrinking seats when they ought to have.

So, you are modifying the claim that California is letting in illegal immigrants in order to be counted in the census to prevent a loss (rather than provide a gain) in Congressional representation? Is that right?

Is just another hypothesis, or is there hard data that the census included the counting of undocumented when apportioning Congressional representation?

Given that I did not make that claim, your post is entirely irrelevant.

This is what you said:

"it prevented them from shrinking seats when they ought to have."

If you intended that as a hypothetical and not a statement of fact then I stand corrected.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So you can make the claim that illegal immigrants increase the amount of congressional seats for the sanctuary states, but reality says otherwise.

It didn't increase the amount of seats, but it prevented them from shrinking seats when they ought to have.

So, you are modifying the claim that California is letting in illegal immigrants in order to be counted in the census to prevent a loss (rather than provide a gain) in Congressional representation? Is that right?

Is just another hypothesis, or is there hard data that the census included the counting of undocumented when apportioning Congressional representation?

Well, there's this:

"all people (citizens and noncitizens) with a usual residence in the United States are included in the resident population for the census"

There are plenty of legal noncitizens. This doesn’t speak to my question. Emily specifically stated that the counting of undocumented people impacted the Congressional apportionment of representation for California. There must be evidence of this for her to state it as true, yes? Or is it a hypothetical like the claim to which i originally responded?

I did not specifically state that.

You sure as hell implied it.

 

[Emily Lake]

So you can make the claim that illegal immigrants increase the amount of congressional seats for the sanctuary states, but reality says otherwise.

It didn't increase the amount of seats, but it prevented them from shrinking seats when they ought to have.

So, you are modifying the claim that California is letting in illegal immigrants in order to be counted in the census to prevent a loss (rather than provide a gain) in Congressional representation? Is that right?

Is just another hypothesis, or is there hard data that the census included the counting of undocumented when apportioning Congressional representation?

Given that I did not make that claim, your post is entirely irrelevant.

This is what you said:

"it prevented them from shrinking seats when they ought to have."

If you intended that as a hypothetical and not a statement of fact then I stand corrected.

The acknowledged overcount of blue states and undercount of red states by the Census Bureau in 2020 prevented some states - including California - from reducing the number of seats they hold in the House.

It's not hypothetical. It's a very real effect that has resulted in IIRC somewhere on the order of Democrats holding 6 seats more than they should have, and Republicans 6 fewer at the last reapportionment. Census also acknowledged that it's the most significant counting error they've had.

 

[Emily Lake]

So you can make the claim that illegal immigrants increase the amount of congressional seats for the sanctuary states, but reality says otherwise.

It didn't increase the amount of seats, but it prevented them from shrinking seats when they ought to have.

So, you are modifying the claim that California is letting in illegal immigrants in order to be counted in the census to prevent a loss (rather than provide a gain) in Congressional representation? Is that right?

Is just another hypothesis, or is there hard data that the census included the counting of undocumented when apportioning Congressional representation?

Well, there's this:

"all people (citizens and noncitizens) with a usual residence in the United States are included in the resident population for the census"

There are plenty of legal noncitizens. This doesn’t speak to my question. Emily specifically stated that the counting of undocumented people impacted the Congressional apportionment of representation for California. There must be evidence of this for her to state it as true, yes? Or is it a hypothetical like the claim to which i originally responded?

I did not specifically state that.

You sure as hell implied it.

Not intentionally, although I see how you got there.

 

[Shadowy Man]

So you can make the claim that illegal immigrants increase the amount of congressional seats for the sanctuary states, but reality says otherwise.

It didn't increase the amount of seats, but it prevented them from shrinking seats when they ought to have.

So, you are modifying the claim that California is letting in illegal immigrants in order to be counted in the census to prevent a loss (rather than provide a gain) in Congressional representation? Is that right?

Is just another hypothesis, or is there hard data that the census included the counting of undocumented when apportioning Congressional representation?

Given that I did not make that claim, your post is entirely irrelevant.

This is what you said:

"it prevented them from shrinking seats when they ought to have."

If you intended that as a hypothetical and not a statement of fact then I stand corrected.

The acknowledged overcount of blue states and undercount of red states by the Census Bureau in 2020 prevented some states - including California - from reducing the number of seats they hold in the House.

It's not hypothetical. It's a very real effect that has resulted in IIRC somewhere on the order of Democrats holding 6 seats more than they should have, and Republicans 6 fewer at the last reapportionment. Census also acknowledged that it's the most significant counting error they've had.

Can you cite data that show that the number would be 6 seats?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So you can make the claim that illegal immigrants increase the amount of congressional seats for the sanctuary states, but reality says otherwise.

It didn't increase the amount of seats, but it prevented them from shrinking seats when they ought to have.

So, you are modifying the claim that California is letting in illegal immigrants in order to be counted in the census to prevent a loss (rather than provide a gain) in Congressional representation? Is that right?

Is just another hypothesis, or is there hard data that the census included the counting of undocumented when apportioning Congressional representation?

Given that I did not make that claim, your post is entirely irrelevant.

This is what you said:

"it prevented them from shrinking seats when they ought to have."

If you intended that as a hypothetical and not a statement of fact then I stand corrected.

The acknowledged overcount of blue states and undercount of red states by the Census Bureau in 2020 prevented some states - including California - from reducing the number of seats they hold in the House.

It's not hypothetical. It's a very real effect that has resulted in IIRC somewhere on the order of Democrats holding 6 seats more than they should have, and Republicans 6 fewer at the last reapportionment. Census also acknowledged that it's the most significant counting error they've had.

And nobody has yet replied to my point about this looking like bad data. That page did not give the threshold they were using but given the sample sizes I strongly suspect they went for .10. XKCD already addressed this:

 

[Emily Lake]

So you can make the claim that illegal immigrants increase the amount of congressional seats for the sanctuary states, but reality says otherwise.

It didn't increase the amount of seats, but it prevented them from shrinking seats when they ought to have.

So, you are modifying the claim that California is letting in illegal immigrants in order to be counted in the census to prevent a loss (rather than provide a gain) in Congressional representation? Is that right?

Is just another hypothesis, or is there hard data that the census included the counting of undocumented when apportioning Congressional representation?

Given that I did not make that claim, your post is entirely irrelevant.

This is what you said:

"it prevented them from shrinking seats when they ought to have."

If you intended that as a hypothetical and not a statement of fact then I stand corrected.

The acknowledged overcount of blue states and undercount of red states by the Census Bureau in 2020 prevented some states - including California - from reducing the number of seats they hold in the House.

It's not hypothetical. It's a very real effect that has resulted in IIRC somewhere on the order of Democrats holding 6 seats more than they should have, and Republicans 6 fewer at the last reapportionment. Census also acknowledged that it's the most significant counting error they've had.

Can you cite data that show that the number would be 6 seats?

I can't find it. Someone did the math, and it made sense to me. I did some back of the envelope checking because lots of people are bad at math... but the count of 6 is from memory and could be wrong.

But here's where the census bureau talks about the over/under counting, and the percentage error:

2020 Census Undercounts in Six States, Overcounts in Eight

The 2020 Post-Enumeration Survey provides an estimate of the undercount or overcount results for each state and by census operation.

www.census.gov

According to the PES, which states had undercounts?​

• Arkansas (-5.04),
• Florida (-3.48),
• Illinois (-1.97),
• Mississippi (-4.11),
• Tennessee (-4.78), and
• Texas (-1.92).

And overcounts?​

• Delaware (+5.45),
• Hawaii (+6.79),
• Massachusetts (+2.24),
• Minnesota (+3.84),
• New York (+3.44),
• Ohio (+1.49),
• Rhode Island (+5.05), and
• Utah (+2.59)

14 out of 50 states had statistically significant errors. 5 out of 6 of the undercounted states are traditionally red; 7 out of 8 of the overcounted states are traditionally blue.