Controversies
Some object to the counting of persons who are in the United States illegally. Republican senators David Vitter and Bob Bennett tried unsuccessfully to add questions on immigration status to the new form.
Organizations such as the Prison Policy Initiative argue that the census counts of incarcerated men and women as residents of prisons, rather than of their pre-incarceration addresses, skewed political clout and resulted in misleading demographic and population data.
The term "Negro" is used in the questionnaire (Question 9. What is Person (number)'s race? ... Black, African Am., or Negro) as a choice to describe one's race. Census Bureau spokesman Jack Martin explained that "many older African-Americans identified themselves that way, and many still do. Those who identify themselves as Negroes need to be included." The word was also used in the 2000 Census, with over 56,000 people identifying themselves as "Negro."
The 2010 census contains ten questions about age, gender, ethnicity, home ownership, and household relationships. Six of the ten questions are intended to be answered by each individual in the household. Current federal law has provisions for fining those who refuse to complete the census form.
Detroit Mayor Dave Bing held a press conference on March 22, 2011 to announce that the city would challenge the city's census results. The challenge, being led by the city's planning department, cited an inconsistency as an example showing a downtown census tract which lost only 60 housing units, but 1,400 people, implying that a downtown jail or dormitory was missed in canvassing.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg held a conference on March 27, 2011, to announce that the city would also challenge his city's census results, specifically the apparent undercounting in the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn. Bloomberg said that the numbers for Queens and Brooklyn, the two most populous boroughs, are implausible. According to the Census, they grew by only 0.1% and 1.6%, respectively, while the other boroughs grew by between 3% and 5%. He also stated that the census showed improbably high numbers of vacant housing in vital neighborhoods such as Jackson Heights, Queens.
The District of Columbia announced in August 2011 that it would also challenge its census results. The Mayor's Office claimed that the detailed information provided for 549 census blocks is "nonsensical", listing examples of census data that show housing units located in the middle of a street that do not actually exist. However, officials do not believe the city's total population will drastically change as a result of the challenge.
Read more about this topic: 2010 United States Census