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PROPOSED RESOLUTION
ESTABLISHING AN EMERGENCY FUND TO ADDRESS THE CITIZENSHIP QUESTION IN THE 2020 CENSUS
WHEREAS, Cook County is a “Fair and Equal County for Immigrants” as defined in 07-R-240; and
WHEREAS, the 2020 Census poses unprecedented challenges that may inhibit an accurate count of the United States population such as a drastic reduction in field staff and the primary use of an online platform for the first time; and
WHEREAS, among these challenges, the inclusion of an untested citizenship question has been proposed by the Department of Commerce and accurate and reliable information on how the Census Bureau will handle this question is not yet available; and
WHEREAS, Cook County has the largest concentration of foreign-born residents in the state of Illinois and must be prepared to educate this population on the importance of participating in the Census to avoid an undercount; and
WHEREAS, immigrants are among the hard-to-count populations that have experienced an undercount in the past, with 11,000 very young Latino children having been missed in Cook County alone during the 2010 Census; and
WHEREAS, Illinois experienced total undercounts of 100,000 persons in 2000 and 128,000 in 2010 which cost Cook County an estimated $19 - $25 million per year after each decennial survey based on the 2002 US Census Monitoring Committee report to Congress and the 2018 report from the George Washington Institute on Public Policy ; and
WHEREAS, it is expected that with limited information on the citizenship question and the chilling effect this population is already experiencing due to increased immigration enforcement, the number of persons missed in an undercount will only increase; and
WHEREAS, based on the Fiscal Year 2017 Annual Report on federal awards issued to Cook County, fourteen of the grants Cook County receives, which total over $43 million, are reliant on U.S. Census population data; and
WHEREAS, without special efforts to ensure an accurate count of immigrant residents, Cook County is primed not only to lose financially, but is leaving the civil rights and fair representation of its entire population at stake; and
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that an Emergency Fund be established to conduct specialized outreach to immigrant communities throughout Cook County; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that a minimum of $200,000 from the $600,000 expected surplus in operating funds described in the Fiscal Year 2018 Year-End Projections be allocated to this Fund under the direction of the Chief Financial Officer to temporarily hire two (2) staff to manage the outreach and report to members of the Cook County Complete Count Committee and the Board of Commissioners
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