LOS ANGELES _ The interns tasked with trying to allay fears about the 2020 census crisscrossed MacArthur Park in pairs. Crossing Alvarado Street, they struck up conversations with vendors selling watermelons and headphones.
Switching between Spanish and English, they stressed the importance of the decennial count and urged merchants to sign cards pledging to fill the form out next year.
But their most important talking point was that the census isn't a government back-channel for spying on migrants.
"Today's mission is to inform them that their data is not going to be used against them," said Jasmine Martinez, 16.
"I want to talk to them about things they're familiar with," she said. "If I see them with children, then I'll say, 'Do you care about the future of your child?' ... Hitting home is always how it works."
A high schooler working with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, Martinez and about a dozen others spent a recent Tuesday morning handing out pledge forms to passers-by under the blazing summer sun.
Until a few weeks ago, many immigrant rights groups were focused on whether President Trump would be able to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The administration had argued the move was necessary in order to better enforce the Voting Rights Act. Opponents countered that it was a transparent ploy aimed at diminishing minorities' voting power and the federal clout of blue states like California.
But in June, a divided U.S. Supreme Court dealt the administration a defeat, refusing to uphold its plan to ask all households about residents' citizenship. Since then, local officials and community organizations have focused their efforts on other issues that could interfere with a complete and accurate count in California.
For CHIRLA, targeting communities such as MacArthur Park _ home to thousands of migrants _ is a key part of its outreach effort. In the fall, the organization said, it will begin canvassing efforts in other parts of California with large immigrant populations, including San Bernardino, Porterville, Sacramento and Huntington Park.
Immigrants and communities of color grapple with a historic distrust of the government, experts say; and others may be reluctant to respond to the census over fears of data privacy breaches, cyberattacks or disinformation campaigns similar to those found in the 2016 presidential election.
Officials have said Los Angeles County will be the nation's hardest to tally because of its high concentrations of renters and homeless people, as well as immigrant communities that may not participate because of language barriers or fear of reprisal from the federal government. Other parts of the state, including rural areas with limited internet access, also face challenges in a census that is set to be the first one to allow all U.S. households to reply online.
"Leading off from the citizenship question, so much of what we were combating was just the general fear," said Kevin Cosney, senior organizing manager at California Calls, a coalition of community groups. "Given the tone of this administration, I think combating those fears are still things that we need to do, so that folks, particularly in immigrant communities, know what the census is about and know about the protections around their data."
At stake nationally are nearly $800 billion in federal tax dollars, political redistricting and the reapportionment of seats that each state is allocated in the U.S. House of Representatives. States draw on census data to form school district lines, and many of the services that people rely on in California _ such as nutrition programs and housing assistance _ are tied to funds calculated using the census.
In California, 72% of the population belongs to a historically undercounted group, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
"The diversity of our population will impact our ability to count every Californian," he said.
To broaden outreach, his organization launched a census and redistricting hub targeting black communities across the state. About 35 organizations in 11 counties are working together on direct outreach through phone banks and canvassing, Cosney said.
"Black people are least likely to participate in the census even after seeing the form and hearing messaging on why that's important," he said. "The intersection of the housing crisis, mass incarcerations and broad decades of government mistrust are all reasons that make black people hard to count. And on top of that, there is a significant black immigrant population in California."
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