Arizona Immigration Law Makes Census Count Tougher

RIO RICO, Ariz., May 25, 2010 -- About 70 parents usually attend monthly parent-teacher meetings here at the Pena Blanca Elementary School. In April, at the last meeting of this school year, only 20 showed up.

"There is a little fear," says Sandra Figueroa, principal of this Santa Cruz County school 12 miles from the Mexican border.

Fear, mistrust, anger. The immigration law approved by the Arizona Legislature last month requires police to determine a person's immigration status if they're stopped, detained or arrested and there is "reasonable suspicion" they're here illegally. It has sparked legal challenges and strong emotions on both sides of the immigration debate.

Whatever its future, the law could not have come at a worse time for the 2010 Census.

The once-a-decade government count of every person in the USA began in March with a giant mail-out. Seventy-two percent of U.S. households responded by mail -- 67 percent in Arizona and 64 percent in Santa Cruz County. On May 1 -- eight days after the immigration law was signed into law -- 635,000 Census workers nationwide started going door-to-door to every home that did not send back the forms. They will return up to six times until they get answers to the 10 questions on the form.

In Arizona, many civic groups fear the new law will discourage cooperation.

"I've talked to friends and people in the community, and they're saying -- whatever they think of the law, wherever they stand on the issue: 'I'm not going to open the door to anyone right now,'" says Tucson City Councilor Regina Romero, who represents largely Hispanic neighborhoods.

"People are scared, they're frightened," says Laura Cummings, a Census employee who works with local groups to build community support.

Census organizers have redoubled outreach efforts, doing more presentations to community groups, adult education classes and churches and public service announcements.

Isabel Garcia, a lawyer and co-chair of Coalición de Derechos Humanos (Human Rights Coalition) in Tucson, has taken to the airwaves, even filling out her Census form on the radio to talk listeners through the process.

"Our communities are living in a very heightened state of anxiety," she says, citing low turnout at this year's Cinco de Mayo festival, a celebration of the Mexican army's victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla in 1862.

Many don't realize that the law won't take effect until July, when Census workers will be done knocking on doors, Cummings says. "We're telling people what the process is, that confidentiality still holds, that Census workers are not police officers and are not looking to report anybody."