Restrictions on US troop data deployed could put the 2020 census at risk: NPR

New security measures by the Department of Defense that limit the publication of military archives on US troops deployed abroad could compromise the accuracy of the 2020 census, according to a recent document released by the Census Bureau.

"This new directive puts us at risk of not having the information necessary to count those who are deployed abroad in the communities in which they live," the census office officials wrote in a note on 14 January. prepared for Karen Undersecretary of Commerce. Dunn Kelley.

The document was delivered to NPR by lawyers from the NAACP and its local affiliates in Connecticut and Boston, who filed suit under the Freedom of Information Act against the Commerce Department, which oversees the Census Office.

Counting deployed troops as residents of military installations inside the states where they are usually stationed should be one of the major changes in the count of national staffs next year.

According to the Census Bureau's memo, troops deployed temporarily in areas of armed conflict and other dangerous places account for 15% of all foreign service members, most of whom are posted abroad. How this relatively small group is counted for the census, however, can have a disproportionate impact on how political representation is redistributed in states after 2020.

Starting from the 1970 census, the bureau proposed figures to divide congressional seats and electoral college votes by formally adding all serving military members abroad during the count of the total number of seats. inhabitants. This included both deployed and temporarily deployed troops, which were assigned to the states according to the addresses provided at the time of their enlistment. The only exception was the 1980 census, which did not include overseas troops in the allocation breakdown.

After years of advocacy by lawmakers and community leaders in areas with military bases nearby, the Census Bureau decided to move to the 2020 census and count the troops deployed at the bases or ports where they are located. are assigned on April 1st.

The change for 2020 is expected to result in a population increase of several tens of thousands in North Carolina, Kentucky and other states with military installations.

This will benefit these states when congressional seats and electoral college votes are redistributed based on the number of people in 2020. The new census figures will also be used to allocate hundreds of billions of dollars in federal taxes to public services. for local governments over the next decade.

To carry out the policy change for the 2020 Census, the Census Bureau planned to use the records of the Defense Manpower Data Center, or DMDC. Service members should have deployment status to know how to include them in the population counts of the communities where their bases or ports are located.

However, according to the internal memo, the office learned in January that the DMDC "can no longer report" currently deployed service members, whose deployment data will be provided by the military branches only 30 days after the end of the mission of a member.

This change comes more than a year after the Pentagon stopped posting quarterly updates on the DMDC website, including the number of deployed service personnel and the number of US troops in Afghanistan. in Iraq and Syria.

The Census Bureau note notes that the agency requires a "surrender" of DMDC military records by February 28.

The office is still in discussion with the military on this issue, NPR spokesman Michael Cook told the bureau.

"Do not receive the files before February 28 does not endanger this effort or the census," says Cook in an email. "This operation concerns a small proportion and we are confident that we can count on this group."

By discovering this problem now, adds Cook, the office was able to find a solution in time for the census next year. Instead, the office plans to use unclassified military archives and the possibility that the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence issues new instructions stating that deployment status and troop deployment time data are not available. classified.

Air Force spokeswoman Carla Gleason, a Pentagon spokeswoman, declined to answer NPR's questions about the Census Bureau memo, noting that the Defense Department "does not comment on confidential or confidential information. pre-decision ".

"The Defense Manpower Data Center has been working closely with the Census Bureau for decades to provide all broadcastable information on [Department of Defense] staff to improve and ensure the most accurate census report possible, "says Gleason in a written statement.

The Department of Commerce has released the internal document of the Census Bureau as part of the recent settlement of a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act initiated in 2017 by the National Association for the advancement of people of color, the NAACP State Conference in Connecticut and the NAACP Boston Branch.

Civil rights groups asked the office to be more transparent in its preparations for the 2020 census in order to avoid undercounting communities of color and other hard-to-number groups.

Jeff Zalesin – a trainee law student at the Yale Law School Law Clinic, who represents the NAACP and other complainants – is concerned about "uncertainty" in the Census Bureau's plans for count the troops deployed.

"These are people on the ground in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, dangerous places where they put themselves and put their own safety at risk," said Zalesin. "And it is their communities that will suffer the consequences of undercounting military service if this problem is not resolved."