Agricultural Personnel Management Program
University of California

2/15/00 News Report -- The Washington Post

The Immigration and Naturalization Service will order its agents to
postpone routine enforcement actions that would interfere with the taking
of the 2000 Census in the spring, an effort aimed at reassuring illegal
immigrants and others that it is safe to be counted, officials said yesterday.

The soon-to-be-released guidance to agents is part of a broad campaign to
persuade reluctant, fearful and suspicious Americans to comply with the
census as officials seek to reverse a long-term trend toward lower
participation.

Ken Elwood, deputy executive associate commissioner for field operations of
the INS, said the agency is drafting a statement telling agents to "stay
away from those areas during the time the census is being conducted."

Agents will postpone action on routine, discretionary cases--for example, a
raid on an employer--if they find that census workers will be in the area
or a census event is scheduled, he said. But the agency will not stop work
on cases involving national security, wanted felons or public safety--for
example, raids on houses where people are held hostage.

The orders to agents will not be as strong as those sought by immigration
advocacy groups, which pressed for a nationwide moratorium for a set
period. Elwood said the agency's policy will be similar to the one used
during the 1990 Census, but that this time immigration officials would
coordinate better with census officials.

Elwood also emphasized that the immigration agency does not want to see
information from individual census forms, which is against the law.

"It's clearly our aim to do everything we can to make sure this is the best
census ever, and that we do absolutely nothing that will interfere in the
census process," Elwood said.

As part of its confidentiality campaign, officials yesterday unveiled
television advertisements by three well-known baseball players--Barry
Bonds, Derek Jeter and Ivan Rodriguez. The high-profile athletes emphasize
that they are not afraid to fill out census forms because the information
they provide is confidential.

The 30-second ads will be shown on at least one major network, NBC, as well
as on many cable stations and electronic scoreboards at most major league
baseball stadiums. The players donated their time for the ads.

In a speech to the League of United Latin American Citizens yesterday,
President Clinton also assured Americans that "information on census forms
is totally confidential."

"Now, if we believe everybody in our American community counts, we've got
to make sure everyone is counted in this year's census," the president said.

Census Director Kenneth Prewitt said most Americans lump census information
with other government data and assume all of it is not private. While most
people fill out their forms anyway, Prewitt estimated that 3 percent to 4
percent of Americans--a disproportionate number of them minorities--do not
send back their forms because of fears that private information will be
given to the authorities.

As a measure of what the Census Bureau is up against--and how it will
resist attempts to be used--Prewitt said an FBI agent asked the bureau's El
Paso office last week to give him a badge and other identification.

"He basically wanted to impersonate a census enumerator in order to get
into a house," Prewitt said.

The agent told census officials he would come back with a subpoena if they
did not comply, Prewitt said. After some back-and-forth, the agent's
supervisor agreed to "cease and desist," Prewitt said.

At a congressional hearing today, General Accounting Office investigators
are expected to press the Census Bureau to devise a better contingency plan
to deal with potential crises and to question why the bureau had to make
last-minute fixes to a vital computer system.