Latino Church Leaders Divided on Census Boycott

Latino evangelical leaders, who wield tremendous clout in immigrant communities, are sharply divided on the 2010 Census.

The rift developed earlier this month after one influential group of pastors said it would call for a census boycott among undocumented immigrants as a bargaining chip in their demands for comprehensive immigration reform.

"The boycott idea's spreading like fire," said Rev. Miguel Ángel Rivera, president of the Washington, D.C.-based National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, or CONLAMIC for its Spanish acronym. "It's the only thing that will make politicians sit up and listen."

News of the boycott has certainly reached CONLAMIC Vice-chair Rev. Kittim Silva, who heads the Iglesia Pentecostal de Jesucristo in Queens, the New York City borough renowned for its ethnic diversity. Though he acknowledges initial misgivings about the boycott, which he knew would be controversial, he says he'll back it.

"As a pastor I communicate the position CONLAMIC's taken on the issues. I have to wear that hat," said Rev. Silva, sitting in his office desk at the brick-walled church he's led since 1983.

Other pastors not affiliated with CONLAMIC disagree with the boycott. "It's unfair to collapse the census into immigration reform," said Rev. Gabriel Salguero, senior pastor of the Lamb's Church in Manhattan and director of the Latino Leadership Program at Princeton Theological Seminary. "There's a large number of Latino evangelicals who understand the positive impact" of the census.

Though President Barack Obama's team has pledged to advance immigration reform in 2009, and senior New York U.S. Senator Charles Schumer has launched hearings on how to make it happen, CONLAMIC worries immigration reform might ultimately be pushed to the back burner by the crowded presidential agenda.

For decades the mantra of Latino civil rights activists with respect to the census has been "stand up and be counted," regardless of one's immigration status.

But the pastors supporting the boycott say undocumented immigrants, perhaps the most disenfranchised and vulnerable class of U.S. residents, will be heard with more clarity this time if they opt out of the count.

If the boycott catches on, it'll have a major impact. It's estimated by the Pew Research Center that one in every six Latinos belongs to an evangelical church. So, assuming the proportion's roughly the same for undocumented Latino immigrants, who number 10 million, then that's 1.6 million people who may hear of CONLAMIC's boycott, which is being widely discussed in evangelical circles and Latino media.

The U.S. Constitution mandates that the census count everyone living in the country every 10 years, whether they're U.S.-born, or they immigrated here legally or illegally. The results serve to distribute Congressional seats to the 50 states, slice the pie of government services, and divvy up the big prize: $300 billion in federal funds to states, counties and municipalities. The Census Bureau reassures undocumented immigrants that their personal information, including immigration status, is protected by federal law.

Rev. Rivera believes it's fundamentally unfair for undocumented immigrants to help their communities gain political and economic clout through the census, only to then be treated as second-class citizens, denied government services and be subjected to ceaseless raids and law enforcement harassment.

"If they're good enough to be counted, then they should be legalized," he said. "It's immoral and dishonest to use them in order to slake our communities' thirst for funds."

But other Latino evangelical leaders say a boycott, however well-intentioned, would do more harm than good.