Leading National Organizations Call for Immediate Resignation of Census Bureau Director Dillingham
Washington,
D.C. –
The co-chairs of The Leadership Conference on
Civil and Human Rights Census Task Force – Arturo Vargas, CEO of the National
Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational
Fund; John C. Yang, President and Executive Director of Asian Americans
Advancing Justice | AAJC; and Wade Henderson, Interim President and CEO of The
Leadership Conference – issued the following statement calling for the
immediate resignation of United States Census Bureau Director Dr. Steven
Dillingham:
“In light of the
letter from the Office of the Inspector General outlining whistleblower complaints that U.S. Census Bureau
Director Dr. Steven Dillingham ordered staff to prioritize the unconstitutional
and premature production of a technical report that would include data on
documented and undocumented immigrants in the United States, a directive
motivated by partisan objectives, we are calling for the immediate resignation
of Director Dillingham.
“We do not lightly come to the conclusion that he should resign.
We are fully mindful that Congress gave the Census Director the remainder of a
five-year term in 2019 that expires at the end of 2021 in order to promote
continuity of service without regard to the term of a president. We continue to
support that improvement to the leadership structure of the bureau. However, after
considering Director Dillingham's efforts to undermine the agency's core
standards of data quality in order to carry out a political agenda, we believe
that he can no longer carry out his duties as the leader of our nation's most
prestigious statistical agency.
“Oversight is critical to ensure that the
American people trust the data the Census Bureau produces. We praise the
thorough work of the Commerce Department’s Office of the Inspector General. We
also stand firmly behind the career civil servants that are working diligently
to produce high quality, statistically sound data.”
“The priority for the professional staff of the bureau is to
produce the apportionment counts from the 2020 Census as mandated by the
Constitution. The delivery of these data has been delayed because of
unprecedented challenges in conducting the decennial Census caused by the
pandemic, as well as the political interference and sabotaging of the process
by the Secretary of Commerce, the White House, and others in the Trump
administration.
“The bureau has acknowledged ‘irregularities’ and ‘anomalies’ in the
data, the nature and extent of which the bureau has not shared with the public,
that the staff is desperately trying to fix. Dillingham’s order to divert
precious staff time away from producing the apportionment count and into
producing data on citizens and noncitizens for political, partisan purposes is
a betrayal of the mission of the bureau. Director Dillingham must resign
immediately.”
NALEO Educational Fund is the
nation’s leading non-profit, non-partisan organization that facilitates the
full participation of Latinos in the American political process, from
citizenship to public service.
Asian Americans
Advancing Justice | AAJC has a mission to advance the civil and human rights of
Asian Americans and to build and promote a fair and equitable society for all.
Visit our website at advancingjustice-aajc.org.
The Leadership
Conference on Civil and Human Rights is a coalition charged by its diverse
membership of more than 220 national organizations to promote and protect the
rights of all persons in the United States. The Leadership Conference works
toward an America as good as its ideals. For more information on The Leadership
Conference and its member organizations, visit www.civilrights.org.
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