As the United States prepares for its 2020 Census, a decennial survey of the residents of the country, rights groups are worried that minority populations - especially Latinos - are being undercounted, and thereby underserved by the national government.
The survey is used to help lawmakers and bureaucrats allocate roughly $400bn in federal and state funding to improve education, healthcare, public transportation and more. A new initiative aims to register a historic number of Latinos in Texas in the upcoming 2020 United States census, a count of the people living in the world’s most powerful country.
Barriers include a “lack of knowledge regarding available services, cost of health services, barriers related to differences in culture, language”, HIAB continued. Challenges to the question were eventually brought before the US Supreme Court, where it was struck down in July, due to the administration using a “contrived” reason for its inclusion.