
The advocacy coalition stated that every voice should be counted.
On December 28, Eva Millona, president of the MIRA Coalition and chair of the Statewide Complete Count Committee, issued a response to the Supreme Court’s decision to relay a ruling in the case of Trump vs. New York. This case was centered around Donald Trump’s memo that ordered Census results to exclude the estimated counts of undocumented immigrants. The court ruled that a challenge to the Trump Administration’s plan was premature. MIRA has pledged to oppose the implementation of Trump’s policy.
“While we are disappointed that the Supreme Court did not take decisive action to strike down the Trump Administration’s attempt to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census count, this fight is not over,” said Millona, in a statement. “The Court explicitly did not rule that the policy is constitutional – it simply delayed a ruling. The legal mandate is clear that every single person counts in the census and every single person is represented in Congress. MIRA and our allies continue to assert that the proposed plan is neither feasible nor sound and runs against centuries of precedent.”
“While we don’t believe it’s possible for the Trump Administration to implement its proposed plan in the next four weeks, we will continue to oppose any attempts to do so to ensure that every single person across our nation and our Commonwealth is counted. We urge the Biden Administration and Congress to join us in these efforts to preserve the integrity of the census count.”
Shira Laucharoen is a reporter based in Boston. She currently serves as the assistant director of the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. In the past she has written for Sampan newspaper, The Somerville Times, Scout Magazine, Boston Magazine, and WBUR.